All Fall Down
by Wintertime
Summary: A conspiracy. An accusation. A dead body. A betrayal. Some won't make it out unscathed. Some won't make it out at all.
1. Opening the Circle

**Disclaimer: **I don't own CSI or its characters. This story is probably one of the reasons why. All joking aside, I own nothing but the prose itself, and therefore, should not be sued - - mostly because I wouldn't have much to offer as payment.

**Notes: **This is not a happy story. Just warning you, right up in front, that things are going to get bad, and then they're going to get worse. Bad people are going to do bad things to good people, and good people are going to do bad things thinking that they're doing good things. I just think you deserve to know that to start off with.

**Other, Less Dramatic Notes: **This story has most of the major characters with starring roles, so each chapter has a note in the title about who the main POV (even though it's third-person) character is going to be. There will also be some GSR. Not happy GSR (see more dramatic note), but GSR, nonetheless, and if that bothers you, you may not want to try this.

**Part One: Ring Around the Rosy**

_Hold on_

_Hold on to yourself_

_for this is gonna hurt like hell._

- Sarah McLachlan, "Hold On"

**Chapter One: Opening the Circle (GRISSOM)**

The morning Gil Grissom was taken in for questioning, he watched the little girl who lived across his street jumping rope. It was mid-October, and the streets were mostly vacant with the other children at school, and she jumped alone, her little voice chanting, "Ring around the rosy, pockets full of posy - - ashes, ashes, all fall down." Her feet, encased in tiny Keds that might have been white three months ago on their first purchase, clapped their rubber soles against the sidewalk. Her thick brown pigtails bobbed rhythmically against her shoulders.

Smiling, he unlocked his townhouse and stepped into the cool cycle of the air-conditioning. He settled his keys down on the table. His mood was mildly pleasant - - it had been a good shift. He and Warrick had wrapped up their case. Nick was working solo and pleased about it, and had turned in a sterling report when he checked back in. Sara and Catherine were working a 419, and their progress was ticking along evenly. They had offered him breakfast after shift - - Catherine had to take Lindsey to school and she was considering donuts and coffee before going back to the house - - but he had declined, feeling soft-edged and happy, wanting sleep, a shower, and nothing else.

Contentment was a rare and fleeting thing. He had long since learned to enjoy it.

His answering machine's red light was blinking. He clicked the wide blue button and leaned his weight against the table. A piping electronic voice announced that he had four new messages, and the smile faded away into a frown.

He had just left most of the people he called friends. There shouldn't have been four new messages. Maybe one, perhaps a reminder of a dental appointment or someone calling to schedule a seminar appointment, but not four. He had never had a busy social schedule.

"Grissom?" Nick's voice, worried and sharp, immediately identifiable, came through the speaker. "Nick. Listen, call me. I don't want to say this over the machine - - but you need to come back, man. It's bad."

_Trouble with his assignment after all?_

Message two was Brass. "Gil, get back to the lab now. You're going to need some people around."

_What the hell?_

Message three was Sara, sounding breathless. "Listen, Grissom, you have to do something about this. No one believes it, but the press is going to be all over you." Her voice gained strength and anger. "That bitch. I remember her. Harvard, right?"

His eyes felt blurry. _Harvard what? _He didn't understand it and it was making his head ache. The cheer had fizzled out of him, and all that was left was a blinding confusion. It was a puzzle with no point, a crossword with no clues. The final message blared through his consciousness.

"Trouble in paradise?" He had trouble recognizing the voice. "Everyone's going to know about it, Grissom. It'll be everywhere and it won't go away. All your little pretensions - - everything you want them to see - - gone." The harsh, bitter joy gave him the last clue he needed: Ecklie.

Nick, Brass, Sara, and Ecklie. The connection was that something had happened - - not to him, but about him - - and he was going to apparently be the last one to find out.

He dialed Nick first. He didn't even hear a ring before Nick answered. Grissom could tell immediately that he was upset, because his Texas accent had risen to the fore. "Grissom?"

"It's me. What's all this about, Nick?"

"Elizabeth Charlotte Zimmer," Nick said.

"Who?"

"See, that's the whole point. I mean - - if you'd done it, you would've remembered. Not," he added hastily, "that I ever thought you did it."

"Did _what?"_

Nick hesitated, and all that came through for a moment was a flat static buzz. "A new scandal just came to town, and you know how this town loves scandals. Elizabeth Charlotte Zimmer took one of your seminars, like, a hundred yeas ago - -"

"Harvard," Grissom said, connecting Sara's message. "1998."

"Yeah," Nick said sheepishly. "That. Anyway, she came here and it took her about five minutes to find a lawyer and a tabloid. She's pressing charges against you, man. Rape."

"I never - -"

"Don't you think I know that?"

"Lizzie Zimmer. I think I remember her now. Medical student - - talented but very quiet. She attended with Sara - - they were vague acquaintances from school." Grissom's mind quite stubbornly refused to process what Nick had said. It settled on the surface; a specimen waiting to be an analyzed. Grissom had never touched Lizzie Zimmer - - had barely thought about her when she was there, and certainly not thought about her in the last few years since the seminar. It was only her connection with Sara that had saved her from being forgotten entirely.

And he had certainly never touched her, not even casually. In the week long program, their fingers had never brushed, he had never bumped into her, and, to the best of his recollection, they hadn't even exchanged smiles.

"Grissom? You there?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'm here. Listen, Nicky, I know you clocked out, but you can do me a favor?"

"Sure. I'm on my way back to the lab anyway - - everyone is. This is wild, man. Everyone's going crazy. I've had about sixteen calls in the last twenty minutes from the press."

"What did they want?"

Nick's sigh was a muffled breath into the phone. "Information about you."

"What did you tell them?"

"That you didn't do it."

He felt absurdly grateful for that, the gratitude sinking in deeper than the actual situation. He said, lightly, "That's a prejudgment, Nick. You hadn't even talked to me then. No evidence - - no way to be sure whether I did it or not."

"You didn't."

"What if I said I did?"

"You'd be lying." Nick sighed again. "Don't screw with me, Grissom. What's the favor?"

He heard his own voice gain an authoritative edge. "Stay away from Lizzie Zimmer - - I don't want any fuel to the fire. But I think I'm going to need you to take a flight."

"You want me out of town?" Nick said disbelievingly.

"I want you out of this town, out of this state, and out of the west. Book a flight to Boston. I'll reimburse you the second you're back. Check into a nice hotel, stay as low-profile as possible, but talk to all the hospitals in the city. See if any of them ran a rape kit on Elizabeth Zimmer in the fall of '98 - - if they can even tell you."

"Latent evidence," Nick said grimly. "You're sending me on a safari. It could stir up trouble."

"But I'm trusting that you won't."

Nick's voice was quiet. "Good. I won't."

Grissom had finally made all the connections, his mind having insisted on piecing it together, and the reality was surfacing. This wasn't some dream - - he was sending Nick across the country to dig up evidence that might not even exist because he was being accused of rape by a young woman whose face he couldn't even recall. Nick was going to Boston, and even though he had suggested it and wanted it, Grissom suddenly wasn't sure that he liked it. Nick was the one who had called first - - the anchor, the strong point - - the safety on a loaded gun.

"Get back as soon as you can," he said, and swallowed. "We're going to need all hands on deck."

"This is going to be bad, isn't it?"

"I don't know, Nick. I hope not." _But I think so._

"I'll get the first flight. And I'll keep it quiet. Promise."

He nodded and said something that might have been goodbye or might have been thanks before he hung up the phone. His head was spinning. He went to his kitchen and grabbed a migraine pill. He considered washing it down with Scotch, but he had to go back to the lab, and if the others were right, the press would be swarming around him. He didn't want them to smell liquor on his breath. He swallowed them dry and tried to recall the happiness he'd had before, but it was too late.

Keys in hand again, he headed for the door. The little girl was still jumping, her rhythm tireless and infinite. Hop, skip, rubber smacking against cement.

_Ashes, ashes - - all fall down._

It was morning, and not cold. He told himself that his shiver was irrational.


	2. A Nice Girl Like You

Thanks for all the great replies. I really like starting a story to good reviews, and I hope I can deliver a story that, if not a happy one, is at least one you'll like.

To answer the questions: yes, Greg is going to be in this (he comes up to be the narrator a few chapters later), and, Krazy, the way I've always heard the rhyme is "ring around the rosy/pocket full of posy/ashes, ashes/all fall down." I bet it varies a lot from place to place, though.

Okay - - Sara's up.

Chapter Two: A Nice Girl Like You (SARA)

"Hey, baby." A warm breath, fragranced with beer and cigarette smoke, tumbled into her direction. The speaker slouched over his chair, his hound-dog face turned sideways to look at her. Sara counted symptoms of drunkenness and reached twelve before she stopped, then counted symptoms of alcoholism and stopped at nine. Unaware of her inner calculation, the man said, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Symptoms of clichéd pick-up lines: one.

"I'm not a nice girl," Sara said. She wanted to step out of the bar altogether, get away from the smell of cheap booze and guys like this one, who hit on her in a lazy, uncaring way. It was too hot in the bar, and a balmy layer of sweat was forming on her neck. She could feel it beginning to spread over her face, like a veil. She'd been waiting for almost an hour.

The man took a moment to process her statement before lolling back in his seat with a gap-toothed grin. "I was hoping that you weren't." A hand, fingers stained yellow from nicotine, fluttered upwards as he gestured to the empty place beside him. "Let me buy you a drink."

"I'm waiting for someone," she said stiffly.

"Nobody waits for anybody here."

"I am."

"Then I think you're in the wrong place, beautiful."

She had dated a popular boy once. She never told anyone, and she knew that was stupid, but she had been ashamed of herself for being so proud of it, and felt that the two cancelled each other out so effectively that it didn't matter. It was like erasing Ryan Kingsley from some great chalkboard in her mind - - but still, she'd done it, and she'd been so proud of it, at the time. Sara Sidle, science geek - - pretty science geek but science geek nonetheless, not even on the popular radar - - being chosen by one of the high school gods. It had been like a thrall - - he'd had everything that was important to her then. She told herself that it was his mind more than his looks that drew her to him (they had shared a chemistry class), but in truth it was neither. It was just the fatalistic urge to be near a celebrity - - even if the said celebrity was only known to one high school in America. Ryan had taken her to the prom and given her pale pink roses on her birthday. All of that junior year, and though she had never been romantic enough to daydream about marriage, she had believed that she loved him.

Eventually, it ended - - a slow kind of withering from both sides. But Ryan had been the first boy she'd loved, in a sense, and he'd always called her "beautiful." With a lazy curve of his lips, and his hand brushing back her hair, it was the only endearment he ever offered.

It had been important, somehow. And even though she had become ashamed - - not of Ryan, but of her reasons for being with him - - she still liked the childish memories, the feeling of being treasured.

Grissom had said she made him appreciate beauty, and in a second, she was flushing and pink, looking at the sliding scope of ice beneath her feet. This was more than a Ryan Kingsley situation, she remembered thinking then, and it made her blush even more.

Being called beautiful was something special.

So was being turned down by a man who'd said it.

The man at the bar was staring at her, his dilated eyes out-of-whack and drifting over her like she was a map with topography to be studied. She could feel his gaze on her breasts and belly, and further down, over her hips. She'd read in books that it was supposed to feel like he was undressing her with his gaze. It didn't. It felt like she was evidence.

It felt like how Grissom might look at her, if she tried to ask him to dinner again.

"Stop staring at me," she said in a low, harsh voice. "I'm waiting for someone." Reiteration, and she knew that she'd lost whatever control she'd had over the situation. There were too many different people crowding up her head, and she didn't know if she was talking to Grissom, or Ryan, or someone else entirely. The drunk had suddenly become every man in her life. She tried to top him, because there was no way she was losing some kind of verbal battle to someone well on their way to alcohol poisoning. "I'm out of your league."

But the words felt hollow, and just as cliché as his, Worse, they made her feel shallow.

He didn't seem to mind, just rolled his eyes over her again before making a snuffling noise in the back of his throat and turning to his drink again. His shoulders drooped low over the glass as he sucked at the rim, determined to drink even the sweat off the lip. He smelled like sweat underneath the beer, and his hair, hanging over his collar, was greasy.

Sara hadn't taken psychology, but she thought she had a pretty good idea of how human beings could fall apart. She moved away from the man as if she might somehow catch a crumbling psyche. Maybe she already had. Her roommate freshman year had gotten stoned one night and given her the haunting theory that insanity might be just as contagious as the common cold. That time with schizophrenics, obsessive-compulsives, and other malfunctioning people with some switch broken or misplaced (the stoned roommate had called them God's punch-lines), could be enough to send a usually-sane person round the proverbial bend.

Sara had thought it was a genuinely disturbing idea, and had told as much to the almost hysterically-laughing girl before leaving the room and driving all night before pulling over at a rest stop and sobbing, knowing that she had be back at class in the morning, knowing that she looked used and screwed-up, crying into a hank of McDonald's napkins pulled from her dashboard. She had cried out of fear - - and probably more than a dash of hormones - - fear that Judy, the roommate, was more right than she suspected, and that one day Sara herself would catch insanity off a stranger on the bus. She'd been studying hard and the stress and driven her emotions up to outrageous levels, and once she'd started crying, she couldn't stop, and that terrified her even more - - because maybe she'd already caught that fatal glimmer. Little Miss Sara Sidle, another amusing and conclusive punch-line brought to you by the creator of the heavens and the earth.

When she finally could stop, she had called it a minor breakdown, taken two Tylenol for her new headache, and driven back to the campus.

She'd met Lizzie Zimmer the year after Judy had told her that insanity was just another infectious disease.

After she had called Grissom, Sara had gone through the only photo album she had, hoping for some snatched image of Lizzie, even a bad one from some party, with the focus shot to hell and the lights wrong. Even a crowd shot. She found none, but by the time she found the picture of Judy, she had been sufficiently submerged in college memories to come up with a face.

Lizzie had been willowy, with a plain, oval-shaped face. Blonde hair, long and usually tied-back. Her laughter had been shrill and nervous. Sara hadn't known her very well at the time of the seminar, Lizzie had been more of a friend of a friend - - a vague but common social position. When they found themselves in the same class, they had gravitated towards each other with the natural inclination of people shying away from the unknown in favor of the familiar. Most of the other attendees, of course, were criminology students, and they all seemed to know each other. Lizzie was pre-med and Sara was in theoretical physics, both on the fringes of the crowd.

In three hours, Sara had gone from not being able to remember Lizzie's face to waiting for her in a sleazy bar. If insanity was an infectious disease, it was an energizing one. Then again, she always had been good at multi-tasking.

The bartender was starting to glare at her. She had, after all, ordered nothing. She was not a paying customer. Well, to hell with him. She was a woman with a mission - - saving her boss, friend, and wouldn't-it-be-nice-if lover from a rape accusation by meeting with his accuser and getting the truth.

The black-and-white headline on the tabloid had read:

_WHAT EVIDENCE CAN SAVE HIM?_

Everybody had an opinion.

_What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?_

_You can catch it just like a cold._

Standing there, she told herself that it was the college breakdown all over again - - too much stress and too many negative factors. Denied or not, she was still in love with Grissom - - she was willing to acknowledge that in favor of avoiding a less unpleasant realization - - and the relationship between them had been tense lately. It had almost been a relief to call him and realize how indignant, for his sake, that she actually was, spitting bitter words into the phone, assuring him she knew he didn't do it. Lizzie Zimmer's accusation was simply breaking her out of a rut, and, again out of routine, she was confused - - drifting. The variables in her current circumstances were just frustrating.

It was a completely understandable reaction.

Soft voice. "Sara? Sara . . . Sidle?"

Her first reaction to Lizzie Zimmer, years later, in regards to all of the previously-mentioned circumstances, was not a slap or a scowl but a smile. She was there not to browbeat Lizzie, but to assure her old friend of a friend that she was a woman, too, and on her side. Then, gradually, she could lead Lizzie down the road to some kind of confession. She could deliver a verdict - - people who lied were only making trouble for themselves - - and Lizzie, realizing her mistake, could turn around and change her mind to the reporters and the lawyer.

"Lizzie." Sara hadn't hugged anyone in years. Her arms creaked as she got them around Lizzie, who was just as thin and anxious-looking as ever.

"Dr. Lizzie." That same shrill laugh was there, too. Lizzie settled down into a creaky leather booth, primly crossing her legs and looking around with some puzzled expression of distaste. "I'm an MD now. Guess all that studying paid off."

"I guess it did." Sara moved in across from her. A waiter, sensing near-purchases, began to move their way. Sara had a few seconds of privacy before he arrived. "I never expected to run into you again - - not this way, you know."

"I never expected it to happen like this, either. But sometimes you have to stick up for yourself, even if it takes years to work up the courage." It had the feeling of a rehearsed speech, practiced carefully in front of the mirror, and the charming, self-assured smile didn't seem at all related to the Lizzie who had stumbled through greetings just a moment before. It was too confident - - too prepared.

They gave their orders to the waiter, who smiled at Lizzie and gave Sara a stern glower for just now ordering after so long of being in the bar. She wanted to flip him off or say something, but she could feel another sheen of sweat appearing at her temples, and she just turned back to Lizzie and waited for him to walk away.

Lizzie said, "So you live in Vegas now."

"Yeah. I moved here a couple of years ago." She shifted on the booth, thankful for her long slacks that wouldn't squeak against the leather. "There was a job opening that I just couldn't pass up."

"You didn't say where you worked."

Sara had reached Lizzie through a complicated network of phone calls to old college friends and acquaintances, reintroducing herself over and over again to get the numbers of people who knew Lizzie, or people who might know Lizzie, until she finally got Lizzie's cell-phone number and reached Lizzie herself. Lizzie had been so surprised to hear from her that career choices hadn't been part of the short conversation.

And now it was, and now she needed some decent lie, because if Lizzie had found Grissom, she must have known where Grissom worked.

"Chemistry professor at UNLV," she said, and immediately berated herself, because it was a terrible lie that would be almost pathetically traced. She jumped the topic immediately. "It's funny, really, because I just saw him the other day. Dr. Grissom." She struggled to add the title in there, to disconnect herself from Grissom at all costs.

It had the desired effect. Lizzie's pale green eyes widened. "Really?"

"He was giving a lecture. I hadn't seen him in years - - you know, since the seminar." She tried to make her voice sound compassionate, calling up all the real victims of rape she'd ever dealt with to inspire the right disbelieving, hurt-for-someone-else's-behalf tone. "Was that when it happened?"

"On the last night," Lizzie said. "I thought he was kind of cute, you know. I mean - - old, but cute. I asked him out to dinner, and he said yes."

A dull, grinding hurt had started in Sara's stomach. She ached for an elsewhere - - wanted to get out of the bar and maybe even out of Vegas. Drive like she had that night in college. At least this was further verification that Lizzie was lying. Grissom didn't accept dinner invitations from girls he met at Harvard seminars.

Her expression must have been still, and Lizzie mistook it for rapt interest and continued.

"He asked me back to his hotel room afterwards, and I turned him down."

_I wouldn't have._

Sara forced herself to swallow more of her drink. It was tasteless. She couldn't remember what she'd ordered and she no longer cared. She tried hard to channel Judy, who had been a stoner and dropped out in her second year, but a regular social butterfly under most circumstances. Failing Judy, she could fall back on Catherine, who sounded convincing even when she didn't know what to say.

"Was that when it happened?"

"In the backseat of his car," Lizzie said, giving a small, neat shudder. "I never told anyone until now."

"So - - you tracked him down and decided that he shouldn't have gotten away with it?"

"Well, he shouldn't have." Lizzie sipped at her drink. Sara tagged it as an apple martini and watched her tiny little swallows. "People shouldn't get away with things like that. When I found out that he was a supervisor now of that criminology agency - - it made me mad. I've changed. I don't just lie back and take it anymore." She settled her glass down, wrinkling her nose. "Was there some reason why you picked this bar?"

Sara gave a small, helpless laugh. It almost sounded natural. "I don't like the press. I didn't want to run into any reporters. I know you're high-profile right now."

"Yes," Lizzie said, smiling. "I am." But her smile was suspicious and she turned her head to look around and gaze for the exit, eyes fixing on the glowing red sign. Lizzie had had enough, and she wanted out.

_She's going to check when she gets back to her hotel, and she's going to find out that I'm not a chem. professor at the university. In fact, she'll go one step further and realize that I'm not even working there - - and then it's only a skip in intuition to find out where I'm really working._

Sara glanced at her watch. "I have to run. I've got a class." And she also had a hole she was digging for herself, the deeper the better, and she might as well hop in and finish it off. She tried for a sincere smile and really hoped that she pulled it off. "It was good to see you again - - I'm just sorry that it had to happen like this."

Lizzie shrugged. "You lose touch with people you meet in college," she said.

"You lose touch with everyone," Sara said, and knew it was wrong the instant she heard it. She recovered, blushing. "I mean - - a lot of my old friends, I barely see them anymore, after the move." She stood and paid, digging worn bills out of her purse and flattening them on the table, forgetting a tip and not caring. The bar was swelteringly hot and Lizzie's face was drawn, and Sara wanted nothing more than to explode into the parking lot and into her car. Burn rubber to the lab so she could talk to Grissom - - or maybe just avoid him. Because insanity was contagious and you really did lose touch with everyone.

"Maybe I'll see you later," Lizzie offered, that small smile hovering on her mouth.

Sara started to reply that maybe she'd see Lizzie's lawyer, too, but she bit it back behind a smile of her own. "That'd be nice," she said. "Really great."


	3. Lightning in Montana

The formatting for these chapters keeps going screwy on me, and I apologize for any problems.  If there's something wrong with the bold/italic functions, just tell me in your review, and I'll fix it right away.  This should work out okay - - but then again, the last chapter should have, too.  Very strange.

Catherine's turn.

**--**

Chapter Three: Lightning in Montana (CATHERINE)

**--**

She applied a fresh coat of lipstick in the restroom and told herself that this was still her job.

Everyone asked Catherine about her stripping with either an edge of humor or an edge of apology.  She used to tell people that she wasn't ashamed of it, because it was what needed to be done, and things had worked out okay, but her own defensive tone had always ruined the argument.  Because yes, it was the best money she could have made then, and yes, things had worked out okay, but in her heart, she knew that if Gil hadn't pulled her out of a trigonometry class and offered her a job, she would have been waste by now, just another coke addict with a body that was good once.  Because without some jigsaw puzzle to hold her interest, things would have spiraled out of control.

Yeah.  They had a way of doing that.

Her hand shook, and she hated it, because she was better than that, dammit, she had earned the right to be better than this, and she wasn't going to cry in one of the LVPD restrooms because the person who had saved her life, given her a career, and become her friend was sitting in a cool, cement-blocked room, waiting for her to get in there and question him.

Catherine told herself that tears didn't solve any problems and that Gil would be embarrassed if he were in there with her.  Excessive displays of emotion weren't really in his repertoire of likes.  It only made staying calm more difficult.

With Nick, and Kristy Hopkins, it had been different.  She had been on the opposite side of the glass, and Nick had never actually been questioned on the topic, just relentlessly pursued.  Covallo had let the night shift control Grissom's case, despite personal attachment, because, to him, it was barely a case.  It was a blot on the lab's reputation, and if it had been anyone but Grissom, jobs would have already been lost, but even Covallo knew it was ridiculous to say that Grissom had actually been guilty.  CSI was just doing casual questioning, collecting latent evidence.  If possible, they would arrange a settlement.

Catherine already hated Elizabeth Zimmer, and she hadn't even met her.

It should have been a minor case to her, because, like Covallo had oh-so-kindly pointed out to her when they were on the phone, it was just a damaged reputation.  She had wanted to snottily reply that it was Grissom's reputation that she was worried about, not the lab's, but she hadn't been able to summon up the right, prissy degree of energy, and she had been afraid that a hoarse scream would have come out of her mouth, instead.

Damaged reputation, blot, whatever.  It wasn't minor to her - - or to Grissom - - and she could already feel that it wasn't going to go down easily.  It wasn't going to blow over.  Once, when she lived in Montana, she had been caught in a bad thunderstorm.  She had been driving and reciting everything she knew about how the rubber in her car wheels would keep her safe, but she had still been scared.  The rain had been steel gray and pounding against her windshield, and she'd had to pull over to the shoulder and wait it out while blue-violet shots of lightening had tumbled through the air and crashed into power lines.  She had watched snapping cords spit streams of sparks, and had gripped her steering wheel tightly, closing her eyes until it was over.

But she was a grown-up now, a big girl, and she couldn't just close her eyes and wait for this storm to die down.  And this was something far more serious than a series of snapped power lines.

So - - line of lipstick drawn across her mouth.  It was her color.  It made her look more professional, since she'd already bitten the other coat away.  The soft cosmetic filled up the ragged tooth-marks on her lips.

Catherine pulled out of the restroom and forced herself to walk the way she usually did.  Shoulders straight and eyes clear.  There was no sign of tears returning.  The LVPD officers who didn't know her gave her appreciative glances as she passed, and the ones who did looked away, because they knew why she was there.

The interrogation room was small, and painted gray.  Grissom waited in it.  He was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing at work - - chinos and a black shirt with most of the starch worn out of it.  His eyes were blank, and she realized that he looked tired, almost frayed.  Brass sat across from him, looking only marginally better-kept.  His brown suit had sweat-stains on it.  For an interrogation, neither one of them was doing much talking.

"Hey," Catherine said.  And there was nothing else she could say, suddenly, all of that preparation for nothing, because she was suppressing a scream again.  "Gil.  I'm sorry."

Grissom didn't say anything, just nodded at her, but Brass was already turning.  "Catherine - - you're the lead investigator on this case.  It's not good for you to say things like that."

"Right.  Yeah."  No sympathy for the suspect.  She remembered.  She eased into the cold plastic chair next to Brass.  "Did you know Elizabeth Charlotte Zimmer?"

"She was a student at one of my seminars.  I remember her because she was a friend of Sara's."

It hurt her to hear how emotionless he sounded.  He was trying so damn hard to pretend that this didn't matter, when it did, and they both knew it.  But she had to pretend just as hard, because it was a play with an audience of lawyers and clauses, and they were just actors, fumbling through their lines the best they could.  Shakespeare, this was not.

"Did you ever talk to her outside of the seminar?"

"No, I did not."

"She claims that she invited you to dinner, and, following, you asked her back to your hotel room."

"No.  We never ate together and I certainly didn't ask her back to my room.  I barely remember her at all.  She was a good student, but very quiet."

"Well, she's not being quiet now."  She could feel her teeth move to her lower lip and she pulled her mouth tautly closed again.  No need for another restroom break because she couldn't keep it together.  "Gil, can you remember anything extra at all?  About Harvard?  About Elizabeth?"

Grissom's voice rose in volume.  "She was pre-med.  I ate breakfast in a coffee shop near the campus.  That was where I met Sara.   I was paid.  Someone left a striped scarf in the assembly room one day and I took it home after no one claimed it.  It was blue and silver.  Are these the kinds of things you want to know, Catherine?"

"Gil."

He wiped at his brow, and she could see beads of sweat come away on his hand.  He collapsed back in the seat, looking somehow older than he had when he had straightened.  "I'm sorry.  God.  I'm sorry, Catherine.  I didn't mean to do that."  His gaze was steely as it connected with her.  "But I didn't do this.  I haven't thought of Lizzie Zimmer in years.  Whatever happened to her, or didn't happen to her, I had nothing to do with it."

"Lizzie," Brass said.  "Why do you call her that?"

"Because that was how she signed everything," Grissom said angrily, his voice barely contained.  "I told you that I met her, and that was how she introduced herself.  That was what Sara called her.  It was her _nickname_, Jim, not an endearment."

"Just a question, Gil."

She noticed that Grissom didn't apologize to Brass.  That gave her some dull feeling of satisfaction.

"Listen, this isn't a formal investigation, just a cautionary one.  Most importantly, it isn't a criminal investigation.  We don't have the right to interrogate you when we don't have any actual evidence.  This is more of Director Covallo's way of evaluating whether or not - -"

"I can keep my job?"

"- - you should be temporarily suspended."

"I didn't do this, Catherine."

She wanted to tell him that she believed him, but, as Brass had pointed out, that was crossing a line in the interrogation room.  Outside of it, she could tell him the truth.  For now, she just nodded.  "He wants you suspended, but with full pay.  Not as a punishment, just as something to calm down the press while these proceedings carry out.  In all honesty, CSI is going to try to get a settlement for you."

"We can do that?"

"Covallo can, if he wants to, and he does.  We can't try for it immediately, though."

Grissom seemed noticeably relieved.  Almost to the point of offering to buy Covallo a beer after all of this had blown over - - and there was that phrase again, and still, why didn't she believe that it wasn't going to blow over?  Even Grissom believed it now, and this was Grissom's issue, not hers, and if he thought that it was going to calm down soon, she should just follow suit . . . but she didn't.  She was still stuck in Montana, out in the lightening, and the only thing that was going to blow over was a couple of cables, not the whole storm.  Not nearly.

"Anything else?"

"I don't think there's anything else we can ask," Brass said.  "This is a lawyer's job, not ours.  We don't have any evidence of a crime."

Grissom said, quietly, "Nick's working on that."

And, boy, was that a shitty time for it to occur to her that she hadn't seen Nick since the end of the shift.  He hadn't come back to the lab, and, unlike Sara, hadn't made an excuse to her about it.

"Where is he?"

Grissom smiled.  "On a flight to Boston, I think."

"Gil - - you don't want to stir this up."  She was surprised by the begging sound in her voice.  "If word gets out to the press that you sent a CSI to poke around near Harvard, Covallo's going to be furious.  And it won't do anything for you.  What do you think he's going to find, anyway?"

"I told him to stay quiet but to check the hospitals.  Anything else is under his own discretion."

"Do you really think the hospitals aren't going to publish this?"

"I trust Nick," he said calmly.  "No, I don't think that he'll cause any trouble in Boston.  He might even uncover something useful.  I'm not sure what, but he might.  And the press won't find out, and Covallo won't find out.  This stays with us.  I don't want anyone else told.  The last thing we need right now are dayshift rumors."

"The last thing we need right now is you getting into more trouble," she said, and regretted it when he looked at her steadily.  She covered with, "I'm serious, Gil.  I don't want this to be happening."

"May I go, Jim?"  He wasn't looking at her.  She'd screwed this up.  Fantastic.

"Sure."  She saw Brass grab Grissom's arm as he headed by.  "Gil.  Stay in touch.  Don't drop off the face of the earth and don't, under any circumstances, fly to Boston."

Grissom's smile was cramped and looked uncomfortable.  "I understand, Jim.  Thank you."

A butterfly flapped its wings in Japan, and there was a hurricane in America.  As she sank her head into her arms, Catherine wondered what caused lightning in Montana and breakdowns in Las Vegas.  If she could find the right butterfly to blame, she wanted a pair of tweezers to shred its wings and a match to burn it with.  Grissom was her friend and her boss, and he had just looked at her like she was accusing him.  And she wasn't sure if he was wrong.

"I hate this," she said miserably.

"You aren't the only one."  Brass.  Who would have figured he'd stick around after Grissom had gone off?  Of course, he was her boss once, too.  Her friend?  Probably.

"I couldn't even say that I believed him."

"I couldn't either, Catherine."  Brass sighed.  "Let him go for now.  He's set on self-destruct, and I even know what his problem is.  He needs to talk about it, but you, me, the team . . . we're all the people he has to talk to, and he can't talk to us, because we're investigating him."

"Probably the closest he got was Nick."  She slammed her hand against the table and felt a bitter lurch of satisfaction at the pain.  "I wish he'd sent me to Boston.  I want to get out of here right now, Jim.  I don't feel good about this."

Lightning in Montana and butterflies in Japan.

Lightning in Grissom's eyes and butterflies in her stomach.

That was part of the reason why she had come to Las Vegas in the first place.  She had been hoping to get away from the weather - - settle down someplace where she could count on the temperature and be surprised when it rained at all.  She hadn't expected to find a thunderstorm waiting in Las Vegas, just curled up under the floorboards of the lab, stirred into the sky by Lizzie Zimmer's arrival.

When this was over, she wanted a vacation in Alaska.

"Sara paged me ten minutes ago, looking for you."

Change of subject.  Back away from the emotion.  Of course.

Catherine checked her own pager and saw no blinking light.  Dead battery.  "Did she say where she was?  I could get Warrick, the two of us could meet her there."

"She's in the lab, so I think she and Warrick have already teamed up," Brass said dryly.  "I'd hurry.  It sounded important."

It was always important.  Catherine needed insulation, not news.  Rubber tires, not emergency pages.  All she really wanted right then was home and a shower, just close her eyes and forget about Montana, Grissom, and all kinds of thunderstorms under the spray of hot water that wasn't rain.

But this was about Grissom.

She stood and pushed the chair under the table with her foot; almost a kick.  "Are you coming?"

"I'll stick around here - - see if I can't squash some tongues before they start wagging."

"Good luck."

She wanted to pull her life over to the side of the road this time, too, and wait it out.  Probably impossible, but she felt like trying, anyway.


	4. Runaway

- -

Chapter Four: Runaway (NICK)

- -

Airports were always crowded.

Nick had been an avid people-watcher since he was twelve and his older sister Rebecca had told him it was a lost art, but right now, he was far more interested in shoving them aside than he was in observing them.  He was purposefully trying to forget why he was there, why he needed the flight, and just keep it foremost in his mind that he needed it.  Lose Grissom's name entirely - - he would be better off with that out of his head.  Grissom and Lizzie Zimmer and accusations and tragedies.  Like he needed any of that.  What he _needed _was a flight to Boston, for personal reasons, and yes, he would be paying cash, and yes, he needed it now, not tomorrow and not next week.

_I hate airports_.

He did, and today, he hated crowds, too, hated people in general.

_I want to be Gil Grissom when I grow up._

He flinched away from the thought and stood in another line.  He wasn't entirely sure where this one was going, but it gave him a purposeful look.  It wasn't like Grissom had ever said he was worthless.  It wasn't even remotely like that.  Grissom had trusted him enough to send him to Boston _(or to get me out of the way)_ and Grissom had to know that prying through past history was a dangerous and delicate operation.  And where was this line _going_, anyway?

People-watching.  A family, genus hurry-us, species exasperated.  A man in a Hawaiian shirt fumbling for his wallet.  A plump mother holding her children like suitcases, close at her sides, and a teenaged daughter applying a ghastly shade of pink lipstick.  Nick saw two Oedipal complexes in the making when the young boys, probably twins, were bundled tight into the mother as she reached into her purse for peppermint candies and came up with big ones, pink-and-white, caught in plastic wrappers.  He looked away, feeling like more than an observer.  Besides, people-watching sucked.  He couldn't remember why he'd ever liked it.

"Ticket?" the young woman asked him.

"I'd like one, yeah."  He heard the harshness in his voice and scowled.  He wasn't going to do any good - - in Boston or here - - if he went into things like that.  He revised his tone and said, "Boston, please.  Just one.  Any class.  I'd like to get there as soon as possible."

She gave him a hesitant smile and her fingers flew over the keyboard.  She called up different channels and rattled off numbers as he gave her his information.  "We have a flight leaving in ten minutes, one empty seat, gate twelve.  Can you run?"

"You bet."  He snatched the ticket-paper from her the second it was printed off.

"Any luggage?"

"Not a scratch."

"Then I suggest you hurry, Mr. Stokes."

He thanked her and bolted, looking and feeling ridiculous, like something out of a romantic comedy - - a man running through an airport in search of a girl.  And the similarity wasn't entirely unfounded, either.  He was chasing a girl's trail, after all.  It just happened to lead to Boston, and he just happened to be the only person (_expendable) _reliable enough to track down the truth.

Gate twelve was just as crowded as the rest of the terminal.  He forgot he was supposed to be Grissom's people-person, and shoved at random, pushing his way through.  Man with a mission.  Man after a girl.  The helpful employee.  Whatever label someone wanted to slap on him, let them go ahead and do it.  He had a flight, and he had a ticket, and he was going to get on it.

He handed away his ticket and was ushered to a seat in coach.  He was sweating, but apparently not enough to merit a drink offer by any of the harried-looking flight attendants.  He got a small pack of airline peanuts instead - - something he had previously thought of as a myth - - and split them open and ate them almost all at once.

"Hungry?"

The man next to him was neatly-attired, clean-coiffed, and looking at Nick like he was a barbarian.  It was too much like Grissom's occasionally contemptuous gaze, and made him want to squirm.

_Relax.  Just pretend he's committed murder and this will all go easier._

He suppressed a chuckle.  "No, not hungry.  I just had to run to make this flight.  I'm feeling a little keyed up, you understand."

"I can see that."

Nick extended his hand, hoping that it wasn't sweaty.  "Nick Stokes."

Neat, prim handshake.  "Abraham Claberson."  Honest Abe bent down to the pack at his feet and rummaged through it until he came up with a bottle of water, which he offered to Nick.  Nick promptly decided that this guy wasn't bad at all.  Abraham had just, in fact, become his new favorite person.  With hearty thanks, he gulped some down and balanced it on his tray table.

"So, what's in Boston?" Nick asked as the captain began making the announcements informing them that planes were safe and that they weren't going to die on the way to their destination.

Abraham leaned over to speak quietly, as if afraid of interrupting the pilot's voice.  His voice sounded softly accented - - British.  "Business matters.  I have a client who wants me to look into some things there."  He shrugged, shoulders moving in their pinstriped chambers.  "I went to college at Harvard.  I'd actually enjoy the opportunity to visit.  And you?"

The lie came so much easier than he would have suspected.

"My brother's wedding."

"Congratulations."

"Mark's real pleased.  And she's a sweetie," he said.  Nick had come from a big family, but he mostly had sisters.  His one brother, Steven, had gotten married and divorced almost twelve years ago.  The last he'd heard, old Steve had been in Canada.  "I'm supposed to be the best man."

"Mark Stokes - - and the name of his fiancée?"

_Think, Stokes_.  "Lindsey Willows."  He mentally made a note to apologize to Catherine for betrothing her ten-year-old daughter to his fictional brother.

Abraham tilted his own bottle of water.  "To the happy couple."

"Yeah, I'll drink to that."

Abraham had the window seat, but Nick watched far more avidly than his new friend as they rose off the ground and into the delicate coating of clouds.  For just a second, all the metaphors he'd read about flight were true.  He was leaving Vegas behind.  All the false neon lights pretending to be stars, all the crimes, that was behind him, scattered over the ground like a child's building blocks.  Even Grissom was a speck from this far up in the air.  It was . . . cleansing.  He wasn't above them - - but he was past them.  Out of their range, somehow, and Nick felt okay with himself.  He was on his way to Boston.  He was going to help his boss.  He was one of the good guys.

It was refreshing to have that much clarity.

_I should run away more often._

He shook off the euphoria and the mental snark, and thanked Abraham again, sincerely, for the bottle of water.  He leaned back in his seat under the pretense of sleep, but behind his closed eyes, he started making plans.  They would hit Boston in a few hours.  He would secure a hotel first, get all of his nonexistent luggage stowed away, and catch a shower and maybe a catnap before heading out to the hospitals.  If he was going to be doing some discreet investigation, he had the feeling that he'd have a much easier time of doing it if he didn't look like he'd just stumbled out of bed.

Shave, shower, sleep.  Then Lizzie Zimmer and the myriad of problems she represented.

The idea of _action_, of _doing _something while even Grissom himself had to wait for things to be resolved, appealed to him.  He could find information, conduct interviews, and maybe accomplish what the rest of his friends, in Vegas, were trying to accomplish.__

He found himself actually falling asleep, and his thoughts dissolved into images.  The images became uneasy dreams, just quick snatches that he couldn't quite convince himself not to believe.  He remembered Nigel Crane, and that was too irresistible for his sleeping mind to stay away from, but what he kept coming back to was Pearson, the psychic, with his visions of blood and ceiling dust, crashing and dying.  He felt like Pearson, and feeling like Pearson wasn't that great of a deal.  The man had died, after all.  At least Nick had survived.  He might have been jumpy for weeks afterwards, and he might have moved house, but he was alive.

Just sleeping.  It was irrational to persuade himself that he wasn't dead, just sleeping, but he found himself doing it anyway.

_Brains like strawberry-swirled whipped cream. . ._

Was he dreaming about that again?  It had been over a year.

_And you.  You'd have to scoop that stuff up, right?_

He slept, his jaw wired shut, because he didn't scream in his sleep, and he didn't scream on planes, and some rational part of him knew this.

_Yeah, little pieces of skull and bone and brains._

Nick slept.  Dreamed.  Gradually, over the hours of humming flight, his grasp on serenity vanished.  In his mind, Nigel Crane pulled the trigger over and over again, and the spray of blood covered Nick's face.  Warm and wet, like tears.  He awoke with his face pressed against the seat cushion, feeling flushed and panicky.  He recovered and straightened.  Abraham was dozing now, but stiffly, so that his suit remained impeccably ironed.

Clearly, Abe was one of the illustrious breed of Those People.  The ones who could crawl through Hades and come out unscathed - - always neat, always with the perfect cologne, always one step ahead of everyone else, and, by the look in their eyes, always knowing it.

Nick had come from a family of Those People.  He'd had more Band-aids slapped on him as a kid than the rest of the Stokes kids put together.  Icky Nicky, always the one with the bloody nose and the note from the teacher about a field trip clasped in one fist, the last day before it was due.  He'd calmed down in high school and become dependable almost as an apology to his parents for the hyperactivity of all the years before, but being dependable got to being a way of life.

And instead of being one of Those People, Nick became That Guy.  The one you could count on.  Unless the task required some flair or something that That Guy just couldn't deal with.

_I don't have to think about this right now.  Not here.  Not with all the rest of this shit kicking around.  People have got bigger problems._

Nick wiped at his forehead.  His knees had banged against the tray table in his sleep and they felt bruised, almost tender.  With Abraham out, the possibility for conversation was gone, and he was unwilling to take another stab at sleep.  He had enough ghosts when he was awake, thank you very much.

He knew that he felt like Morris Pearson because of a vague, gnawing sensation of the future in his mind, and it made him uncomfortable.  His earlier thought recurred to him, and he wondered why doing what Grissom told him to do felt so damn much like running away.

And then he wondered why he felt, irrationally, that he was better off getting out of Vegas this time.


	5. All the King's Men

Okay, Krazy - - a Greg chapter.

- -

Chapter Five: All the King's Men (GREG)

**- -**

There was no way he was turning on his music today.  It would have been too much like playing rock in a funeral home.  Everyone was moving around stiffly and they talked in whispers, even about their own cases, like Grissom was going to overhear and attribute some innocent fingerprint-powder remark to the Zimmer scandal.  Greg had been pissed when he'd clocked in and found that he was in one of those rare situations where everyone seemed to have called and discussed their outfits ahead of time, because they were even dressed like it was a funeral - - all charcoals, blacks, and navies.

It made his lime green shirt look ridiculous, it made him feel ridiculous, and ridiculous was not something that he wanted to feel today.

Besides, he had test results to run, and he didn't need a dress code running through his head.  He had enough things to think about.

CODIS spat out his results.  Even it sounded bitter about something.  The machine's humming was usually good background noise, but it seemed louder, harsher than usual.

_Or it could just be that I'm going completely insane_, Greg thought optimistically.  _That would be a refreshing change of pace.  Instead of doing overtime tonight, I think I'll write on the walls and become paranoid that the computers are talking to me._

He pulled the printout up from the tray and headed down the hallway.  This was one he wanted to take to Grissom personally, more because of the circumstances than the actual info.  The case itself was the robbery Grissom had been working before he went off-shift, and Greg could have paged him, but something personal needed to come through.

He found his boss sitting in the break room, sipping at a cup of water.

"Hey," Greg said cautiously.  "Results."

Grissom looked up.  It seemed like he had aged ten years in the last few hours.  And he looked tired, which rarely happened - - Grissom simply looked exhausted, as if he'd like nothing better than to curl up with a pillow and sleep for six days straight.  He reached for the results, but Greg held them back, his hand tightening around the paper.

"You don't look so good," he said, sitting down across from Grissom.  "You ought to go home and get some sleep."

He knew from the look he got that Grissom wasn't sure if Greg had heard about the Zimmer girl yet.

Greg continued, "You don't have to be here just because of her.  No one cares what she's saying, you know.  It doesn't make a difference.  Everyone knows that there's no way you did something like that."  He slid the results across the table, suddenly embarrassed.  There weren't very many unspoken rules in the lab, but one of the few was that you didn't talk to Grissom about anything happening in his personal life.  Even if you were just trying to help.  "I - - the, the blood matches your victim."

"Thank you, Greg," Grissom said finally, taking the printout.  "This - - helps."

"Good," he said, trying to be lighthearted.  "Then this definitely places me in the favorite lab tech position, right?  Because Hodges has been making some noises about how he's the only one you like, and personally, I've been getting a little nervous about job security."

"Just not nervous enough to turn down your music," Grissom said with a weak smile.

"Right," Greg said, returning the smile.  "Not nearly that nervous."

"Well, thank you," Grissom said again, and Greg was no longer sure why he was being thanked.  Grissom stared back down at his cup, as if the water was going to divine something for him.  Greg almost leaned over to see if there were an answers floating on the surface, but he pulled back in time, distastefully conscious, once again, of his own separation.

He wasn't Grissom's friend.  He was loyal to Grissom, and he liked Grissom, but he wasn't Grissom's friend.  That would imply some level of understanding between the two of them that absolutely did not exist.  He was never going to divine Grissom.

"Well, I've got work to do," he said, and scampered off. 

Not that he was actually going to go back to work, of course, because he was on break right now.  No reason except that he was bored.  Of course, midway between the break room and the lab, he realized that there was nothing to do on his break, and he even though he was hungry, he didn't really want to go back in there with Grissom's Uncomfortable Emotions just to get a pint of Chunky Monkey out of the freezer.  He needed some other alternative.

Well, he'd ask Nick.  They'd get some lunch.  Except, he discovered after a few painful minutes of popping his head into every room, Nick was nowhere to be found.  It figured.  Nick was probably the one person he could have talked to about the Zimmer thing without screwing himself over, or _not _talked about the Zimmer thing, whichever worked better, and Nick wouldn't have asked any questions.

Except Nick was gone.

That made him uneasy.  It wasn't like Nick to not show up when something like this was going on, and all the others were there.  Someone had probably called him, and Greg most emphatically was not going to pick up a phone to call his friend just to ask if he'd heard about a rape charge, and _then _ask if he wanted to go get something to eat.

He stuck his head into the trace lab, wondering whether or not this was even worth a try.  "Hodges?"

Hodges gave him a look that most people reserved for particularly vicious pond scum.  "Sanders.  What do you want?  Shouldn't you be working?"

"I'm on break."

"Fantastic."

"I'm hungry."

Hodges bent over his microscope again.  "So eat something."

"Yeah, well, I don't want to go back in the break room.  Grissom's in there, and the positive energy is, like, zilch.  And I'm not going to sit in a restaurant all by myself, so come with me, and you'll actually get the impossible free lunch."

"Sitting with you would be a price all its own, Sanders," Hodges said, but he pushed the microscope away despite himself.  "You talked with Grissom?"

"Yeah.  He's depressed."

"Score one point.  He's been charged with rape, and in fifteen minutes, the director's going to have his ass on the pavement for at least a week.  No point giving the defense lawyers the ammo that an accused rapist is heading up their investigations."

Greg sighed.  "He didn't do it, and I didn't come here to listen to you snark.  Are you going to come with me or not?"

Hodges tossed his folder to the side with a groan.  "Where are your other friends, Sanders?  I thought you were supposed to be the little pet.  Why don't you ask Nick Stokes to baby-sit you?"

"He's not here.  You're my second option."

"I'm trying to get you to leave me alone," Hodges said with a slightly disgusted tone in his voice.  "Can you not take a hint, or do you just not pick up on all the sarcasm?  I'm not your friend, and I'm not going to have lunch with you.  Get out of here."

Greg clapped a hand over his heart.  "Oh, I'm so wounded.  Hey, your tough break, not mine."

He wondered when he made rejection an art - - even if said rejection was something as simple as Hodges turning down a lunch invitation, and Hodges had been right, after all, the two of them had never really been friends, or even amiable co-workers, they'd always circled around each other warily, striving for the approval of the people above them in their different ways.  But this day - - this time - - it was supposed to be different.  Because Elizabeth Zimmer had just called for everyone to come out of the pool, and lab rats on a sinking ship were supposed to stick around, not desert.

Well, it served him right for trying to make some kind of a connection with a guy who looked like he'd like to get "piss off" tattooed on his forehead.

He tiptoed past the break room this time, because he'd made a mistake going in there in the first place, and he knew it, and Grissom knew it, and he didn't want to get called back in there for some kind of very awkward, "thanks for the support."

It was enough that Grissom knew that Greg didn't believe a word of the rape charges.

They didn't need to turn it into anything more complicated.  It wasn't some kind of a political game, and he didn't need to be thanked for the truth.

Grissom didn't see him.  Good.  He headed through the maze of hallways until he came into his own lab again.  There was a new stack of folders on his desk - - Ecklie was probably pissed that Greg had pushed the night shift ahead again.  A bold handwritten message in Sharpie: _As soon as possible_.  Clearly, Ecklie hadn't been operating under the same restrictions, or he would have just written _ASAP _instead of spelling out the acronym itself.

He wasn't so hungry anymore.  The possibility of eating his lunch all by himself wasn't as appealing as digging into burgers with Nick running a commentary on a football game.  It just seemed kind of pathetic.  Kind of Ecklieish or Hodgesish and not Greggish at all.  He was a social creature, and to be in his natural element at all, he needed people.  He went kind of crazy without them, which was why alone-Greg was liable to turn into brooding-Greg or spaz-Greg or some other kind of identifiable Greg.  And being alone with no focus except food was going to turn him into other-Greg.

He'd rather work.

Samples taken, extra plastic clipped away.  He was good at this - - better than average, and he knew it.  Ecklie's samples were in the computers in a matter of minutes, relatively speaking.  Fast for DNA work.  But as soon as it was over, he had nothing left to do, and he wished that he'd gone slower.

Greg sat there, waiting for the tests to finish.  He drummed his fingers in an incomprehensible beat on the table - - a-rum-pum-pum-pum.  Little drummer boy, he thought sardonically, and was continuing the rhythm when someone said:

"Still hungry?"

Hodges.

Greg swiveled his chair around.  "Absolutely starving."

"Still willing to pay?"

"As soon as I get these results to the Prince of Darkness, yeah."  He didn't ask why Hodges had changed his mind, because Greg couldn't care a whit about Hodges's personal motivations in the matter as long as he didn't have to turn into other-Greg.  "Pick someplace."

"Prince of Darkness, Sanders?"

"Ecklie.  The guy's been on my ass all week."  Greg shoved his hands against the desk and brought his chair forward.  "Says I'm giving the night shift all my time, when clearly, I'm supposed to be on my knees, licking his loafers.  If that guy had his way, we'd all be brownnosing him every shift."

Hodges rolled his eyes, which could have been interpreted in several ways.  Greg took it as agreement.

The results came out with a soft whirring noise, and he snatched them up.  "I'll drop these off.  Wanna come with?"

The eye-rolling stopped, and there was a smile instead, which, willingness to be blind to motivation aside, was kind of creepy.  Greg wasn't sure if he'd ever seen Hodges smile before.  "Yeah, I'll come.  Why not?  Then we'll take off."  The smile widened just a little - - a fraction of an inch, maybe, but enough to make Greg wonder, uneasily, if Hodges was on something.

Maybe he should have stayed away from lunch invitations today.

Too late for that, though, so he shrugged in response, something that, like Hodges's eye rolling, could mean anything, and exited, Hodges right behind him.  He could almost feel the trace tech breathing on the back of his neck, so he sidestepped until Hodges finally started walking next to him.  He found Ecklie in a file-clogged office, and dropped the results on the desk with little fanfare.

Ecklie stared back at him coolly.  "Nice to see you've finally started to process my evidence," he said.  Then his eyes darted to the side and found Hodges.  "David.  Going on break?"

"If you don't need anything put through trace," Hodges said calmly.

Greg watched the exchange with fascinated confusion, unable to understand what, exactly, was happening in front of him.  He had never, admittedly, seen Hodges and Ecklie talk to each other, but he had assumed that Hodges would have the same attitude with the Prince of Darkness that he had with everyone else.  Apparently, not true.  There was none of the bitter sarcasm, and not even any of the bootlicking that Hodges usually reserved for Grissom.  There was some kind of peace between the two of them - - two assholes, Greg thought, who fought everyone else, being okay together.

The whole world was going crazy.  A camaraderie between Hodges and Ecklie was the last thing that needed to be going through his mind right now.

"No, go ahead.  I'll clock you out."

_I really need to stop being a people person.  People are scaring me today.  And why is it that I'm almost as bothered by Hodges and Ecklie playing nice as I am by Grissom getting charged with rape?_

"Thanks," Hodges said, and in a second, he turned his head back to Greg and was Hodges again, and there was some indefinite look there - - some strange, elusive hurt under the layers of brown iris - - something that made Hodges look resigned.  "Come on, Sanders.  I don't want to stay here forever."

He wished he'd just gone back for the Chunky Monkey, no matter how awkward facing Grissom again would have been.  Something was - - _off _here.  Something, beneath the surface, was wrong, and it wasn't just his imagination - - it was other-Greg, kicking in with some valuable input.  It was a little whisper in the wind as he and Hodges headed out into the dry desert air that told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was screwed.

Hodges was still smiling when they got in the car, Greg having offered, absently, to drive.

"Good mood?" Greg asked, sliding his keys into the ignition.

Hodges looked at him in surprise.  "No.  Not particularly.  Why?"

"You're smiling."

"It's just to keep you nervous, Sanders.  Drive."

"It's working," Greg said shortly as he entered the highway.  "It's really off-putting, too.  I thought you never smiled.  I was operating under the assumption that your facial muscles weren't capable of such a gesture, and now I'm alarmed."

"Get over it."

His mouth was dry.  He pressed down on the gas to take them away.


	6. Controlled Circumstances

Thank you all for the lovely, lovely feedback.  It was so great to come back from my trip and see the responses in my inbox.  Now, I should warn you, the posts for the next two weeks will be less frequent than I'd like, because I have some family in-town that I'm going to be playing hostess for, but after the two weeks are up, we'll resume the daily posting schedule.  So here it comes - - the Warrick chapter - - the one that's been the hardest for me to write.  I like Warrick, but I always feel nervous writing him, because he's cool and insightful and hard for me to understand, especially in this version of the CSI universe, where all the characters are a little less adjusted than they'd like.

- -

Chapter Six: Controlled Circumstances (WARRICK)

- -

He'd made it an art form. 

The world was going to hell.  He sipped his coffee.  Catherine turned pale and her voice rose dangerously close to a scream.  He stared at the glossy tabletop.  Sara dodged questions almost physically, turning her body away from the table, than towards it.  He said nothing; did nothing.  Motionless.  Cool.  It was easier to pretend that he was in control of the situation that way, except, this time, it wasn't working.

Warrick didn't feel in control at all.  He felt like the last person standing on a sinking ship that was still taking him under.  The cool - - the calm - - was just a way to keep breathing today, a way to stay afloat, not a way to save or be saved.

"You compromised the investigation," Catherine was saying.  She looked tired; wan.  Her eyeliner was smudged across her cheekbones.  Whatever cool Cath had accumulated, she'd definitely lost it.  "Zimmer is going to find out that you lied, and we'll never be able to keep this under wraps.  They'll assume that Grissom sent you to spy on her."

"Grissom wouldn't do something like that," Sara said.  If Catherine looked tired, then Sara sounded exhausted.  "And I'll tell that to whoever asks."

"It's going to be very difficult to convince anyone that Grissom wouldn't do something like that now that he already has."  Catherine sat down next to him.  He almost wanted to scoot away from her, to hide from the cloud she was projecting.  He could only keep himself afloat, after all.  "Nick's gone."

In his mind, he dove into the water, and sank.

"Nick?  Nick's gone?" he asked, unable to contain the small, sharp note of panic in his voice.  "Where he hell did he go?"

"Boston," Catherine said.  "He got a flight hours ago, when this started."

"Son of a bitch."  He didn't even know if that was a general expletive or one applying to Nick.  "Why did he do that?"  He glared at Sara, resenting her in Nick's place.  "Why do you keep thinking that you can just change everything?"

"I'm not the one in Boston," Sara said.  "And I'm not the one Grissom asked to leave."

"Grissom asked him," Warrick said slowly.  "Not just gave his approval, but _asked_?  What's wrong with him?  Doesn't he get how bad this is going to look when it comes out?"

"He doesn't care."

"When has he ever cared?"

"This isn't politics, Sara," he said.  "This is more than his career that's on the line.  This is his life.  This is - - everything.  He's risking that."

She seemed numb.  "His decision."

"He's not allowed to make that decision," he said, and saw Catherine nodding along at his side, and he almost wanted to hit her, because she was mute in her agreement, not truly supportive, just like someone bobbing their head to music because it sounded right.  Catherine didn't understand.  Catherine was too tired to come up with her own ideas, so she was following his, and as soon as she'd had some sleep, she'd cut him loose in favor of her own, equally invalid theory.  "No one is supposed to make these decisions by themselves.  And definitely not when they make the wrong choices."

"Nick's gone, Grissom's in trouble - - where's Greg?"

He couldn't look at Catherine, so he stared at the table again.  His skin was warm.  Losing his cool was too costly.  "I don't know.  He was here a while ago."  A trace of bitterness leaked into his voice.  "Maybe he's off on a wild-goose chase, too.  Maybe he decided that he's going to talk to Lizzie Zimmer, too.  Or that Abraham Claberson lawyer she has on her side.  He's probably in court right now - - do you want me to call and check?"

"You're accomplishing a lot right now, Warrick," Catherine said dryly.

He said nothing.  He'd already lost his battle.

Screw it.  What was he even fighting for?

Sara said, quietly, "I'll check and see if I can't turn him up."  She vanished.

"You know why she's doing this, don't you?" Catherine said, staring at the door.  She flicked beads of water off her cup.  "She's in love with him."

Warrick frowned.  "Like you never were."

"I wasn't."

"No one believes you, Cath," he said.  _On that, or on anything else.  _He made himself swallow instead of speak, and continued with, "Grissom's never had a woman around that didn't fall for him at least once, and he's never had one that he fell for back."  She didn't say anything.  He rotated his cup on the table but didn't drink.  "He's closer to her, though.  I used to even think that he was in love with her, too."

"He isn't."

"Jealous?"

"You're jealous of Nick," she said.

"It's not the same thing."  And besides, he wasn't.  Just because Grissom had chosen Nick to do this digging, just because, for all the much-touted favoritism that he'd heard so much about, Warrick wasn't the one Grissom had asked - - it didn't mean anything.

"We aren't having this conversation," she said, and crushed the paper cup in her hand.  Water dripped from a crack in the bottom, and he watched it fall like rain and dampen her palm.  She held it awkwardly, and waited for some kind of rebuke.

"Relax, Cath," he said.  "You don't love him anymore, and he never loved you."

Catherine stared at him.  He knew he was telling the truth - - knew, though he'd never seen, that at one time, Catherine had wanted Grissom, and he knew, just as certainly, that he hadn't wanted her back.  She must have never pursued him, though, or they never would have been so close.  Grissom backed away from things that loved him; he didn't embrace them.  He watched her eyes grow stormy, and then calm.

"What are we fighting about?" she asked.

He smiled.  "It's a good day for fighting, I guess.  I'm sorry."

"There was never anything between me and Grissom," she said.

And he nodded, because there never was.  Insight.  Play and counter-play.  He evaluated the odds before he continued.

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"You didn't do anything.  That was all me, I think."  She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he could smell a light, almost honeyed scent.  Perfume?  She must not have planned on coming back to work, or she wouldn't have worn it.  He wondered if this was what he got for saying that she must, at some point, have been in love with Grissom.  He wondered if she was trying to convince him that she loved him.

"It was all of us," he said.

"Not you, Warrick.  You never lose control."

He closed his eyes and smiled.  "Nope.  Never."

"I wish I was more like you.  I wish I could keep things under control."

Just for revenge, and for pettiness, he told her that it always seemed like she had everything under control, and she pulled away from him, disgusted at his lack of insight after the revelation only moments before.  He tried to convince himself that he didn't care.  He didn't need Cath to offer herself up for understanding when she couldn't even see how close he was to breaking down.  Calm, he was not.  Cool, he was not.  He was barely in the same stratosphere as those things.

Which was apparently why he wasn't the one that got to take the field trip.

Sara came back in.  He was tempted to ask if she'd had any catharsis while she was gone.

"I found him.  Well, I know where he is."

Warrick quietly waited for some major bombshell to drop.

"He's out eating lunch with Hodges," she said, wrinkling her nose.

It wasn't the bombshell that he'd expected.  "Doesn't Greg hate Hodges, and doesn't Hodges hate Greg?  Don't tell me this is one of those love-hate relationships.  We have enough going on today without one of them coming out of the closet."

"As far as I know," Sara said dryly, "both are still straight.  Bobby says that Greg asked Hodges to go to lunch since Nick did his disappearing act.  And Grissom's sitting in the break room, trying to crumble walls with laser-vision."

He must have said something to her, because she seemed happier.  Almost bright.

Never was a woman that didn't fall for Grissom.  They always wanted him first, and whatever came afterwards, whoever else they took up with, they'd just be substitutes.  Which was why he was not going to sleep with Catherine, even if he wanted to, and even if she just laid the invitation flat on the table.

He didn't like the idea of being someone's last resort.

"You want to talk to him?" Catherine asked.

"Me?" he said.  "No.  He's not the kind of guy that does consolations."

She shook her head, smiling, and then the smile faded.  She patted the chair next to her so Sara could sit down, but Sara, still mistrustful of Catherine's intentions after the blowout before, clung to the doorframe.  "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to wait for something to happen," he said.

He wished he had a cigarette.  He wished he had anything at all.

He was not on top of this situation.

There weren't enough coping mechanisms in the world.


	7. Deals with Devils

Note: Okay, this chapter is a little more unusual - - this is a conversation between two people - - two of the main antagonists of the story.  You'll find out the name of one of them during the chapter, and as for the other - - well, it's someone that you know.  And you'll find out who. . . eventually.  Also, this is probably the most ominous chapter _ever_.  So just remember what you've signed up for, here.

Chapter Seven: Deals with Devils (OTHER)

"Did I tell you that I killed a girl in Holland once?  She worked in the hotel where I was staying, and I went down to the gift shop and bought a pair of those wooden shoes.  Shoved them down her throat.  She choked on them."

"Is there a point to this story?"

"The point is, I like to be imaginative."

"And the point of that point is?"

"The point is, I like this job.  And the other point is that you shouldn't press me.  You haven't forgotten who I am, have you?"

"That's impossible."

"Good.  Because the last person who pressed me ended up under a car.  Several, actually.  I think they found his body two weeks later, covered in motor oil and crushed to death.  I had to slide the rose under the tires to get it to stick, and you have no idea how much effort it took.  Still, a signature killer can't be a signature killer without a signature, can he?"

"A signature killer.  Is that what you call yourself?"

"I call myself an artist, actually.  A signature killer is what you'd call me."

"I'd call you a serial killer."

"Then you're being obtuse.  I have no pattern, only a signature."

"That much is true, at least.  A hit man?"

"I do many things for people.  Some involve murder, some don't.  No, stick to where you're better acquainted.  I'm a signature killer.  I'm giving you everything you ever wanted.  I'm the devil of your dreams.  You hired me to end Gil Grissom, and I think I'm doing admirably so far.  We're going to have quite the finale."

"He's doing more than we expected, though.  Sending Nick Stokes to Boston - - I never saw that coming.  What if he finds something?"

"There won't be anything to find."

"I'm just saying - - "

"Do you want me to kill Stokes, too?  You're paying for the flight to Boston if I do."

"I don't know why I should have to.  I'm not paying for this in the first place.  This is your plan, isn't it?  You found me."

"Please.  You wanted me to find you.  You asked around."

"I don't want Stokes dead."

"That's a shame.  See, I've always wanted to do a crucifixion - - they seem so dramatic.  I bet the original was spectacular.  Stokes might have been a good candidate.  He isn't your Christ, but he's one of the disciples, isn't he?  Or would you prefer it if I killed Gil Grissom that way?"

"I don't want Grissom dead, either."

"You pursue me - - you spend months looking for me - - and the most you want is a false rape charge?  I found you Lizzie Zimmer.  You owe me."

"I offered to pay you."

"I don't want money.  I want another garden.  I want a death.  There's your price."

"It's not - - it's not my responsibility, who you choose.  I can't be blamed for what you do, can I, Flowers?  If you do kill someone - -"

"Keep telling yourself that none of this is on your shoulders.  Does it make you feel better?  You hired me to ruin him, not kill him, and I like the job, but blood's the price.  And that _is _on your shoulders.  I wouldn't even be in Vegas if I hadn't heard the rumors about you.  Whoever dies here leaves their blood all over your hands."

"And a rose in their mouth, since you call yourself a signature killer."

"A white rose.  Do you understand?  Do you know what you've paid for?"

"You're the devil, aren't you?"

"You aren't the first person to say that.  Do you understand now?  There's no going back.  I'm only giving you what you wanted.  Everything else is a footnote.  Grissom will be completely destroyed by the time this is over, and _that _is what you spent so long wanting, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Good.  You'll get it.  I always get the job done."

"Zimmer is unreliable."

"Zimmer can be controlled.  It's the one you picked out that I worry over."

"He's a safeguard.  He doesn't understand what's happening.  I haven't even told him about you, yet.  He's just in case."

"Just in case I have to kill Lizzie Zimmer?"

"Would she be the one you kill?"

"I hate Zimmer.  She'd be a footnote.  Besides, that's part of the job, not a benefit.  No - - I get one of Grissom's.  I get one of his own.  One of his sheep.  I'll string them up cruciform.  Cut their throats.  Paint his name at their feet in blood.  He'll blame himself.  Won't it be lovely?  Won't it be worth it?"

"I shouldn't have gone looking for you."

"Oh, I think it's going relatively well.  And at such a fair price.  All you had to pay was your soul, right, and that's not too much.  It's not like yours was in spectacular condition to start with, was it?"

"You don't believe in souls."

"You'd be surprised what I believe in.  But no, in fact, I don't.  There's certainly nothing holding me back from doing what I want to do.  I don't believe in _my _soul, anyway."

"Neither do I."

"Oh, look at you, all high and mighty.  You dreamed of this.  You probably jerked off to it, I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised.  You wanted him ruined.  You wanted him to crawl.  You've probably wished him dead more than once, and I'm giving you exactly what you want, and now you're pulling moral high-ground.  You don't deserve that."

"I never did anything."

"You're doing it now."

"No.  You are.  I - - you're in control of this."

"You're right about one thing.  You're not in control anymore.  This is my game now, not yours.  And if I want Gil Grissom dead - - if I want Nick Stokes dead - - if I want one of those pretty girls around them to bleed for me and scream for me - - then that's my business.  _This_ is _all_ my business."

"God save them."

"You don't believe in God."

"- - No.  No, I don't."

"Now, see, I believe in God.  That's the difference between us.  I believe in a God who burned a city.  I believe in a God who let His son die.  I believe that the best bargain is a blood price, and there, didn't I tell you that I believed some things?"

"You're a monster."

"I'm almost your reflection.  People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

"What are you going to do to them?"

"To his friends?  Stoning actually seems like a pretty good idea, now.  And it would add that dramatic touch that counts for so much these days.  I'm not sure the symbolism of Saint Stephen is as clear as that of a crucifixion, though, are you?"

"Is this going to be worth it?"

"It's going to be worth everything you paid.  I'm not sure if it'll be worth everything I'll take.  But you'll never confess, will you?  You'll never tell them about me, because then they'll have you, won't they?"

"Yes.  Yes, damn you.  Did you plan all of this?"

"Some of it.  I am, however, surprisingly good at short-term improvisation."


	8. The Greatest Treason

Notes: RainbowsnStars - - don't worry, this isn't going to be purely Grissom-angst.  Everyone else (and Greg, have no fear) will get their share.  And more than their share, probably.  I'm a cruel person.  Really glad everyone liked the chapter-conversation between Flowers and the other guy.  Go ahead and make guesses on the identities of everyone in the conspiracy.  It'll be fun.  For me, anyway.

Actually, you'll probably get most of them right . . . but there are going to be a few surprises.

- -

Chapter Eight: The Greatest Treason (GRISSOM)

- -

Grissom went home that afternoon, shortly after he became weary of sitting in the break room, watching people watch him.  Only Greg and Sara had actually come inside to say anything at all, Greg with some awkward eloquence, and under the pretense of giving results, and Sara with an intensity that he had rarely seen, under the pretense of looking for Greg.  She had seemed thinner than he remembered, almost fragile, and when she had bit her lip and faced him, he had looked elsewhere.

_Tiger, tiger, burning bright_.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," she'd said, to start with.

He had been able to thank her, and she had, indeed, grown brighter.  Eyes darker than his own had been lights against his skin, warming, shining - - but not comforting.  Not comforting, at all.  Nothing was comforting, particularly not light.  He did better in the dark.

He left the lab to escape gazes and misplaced consolations.

The little girl with the jump-rope had gone inside.  No one was watching him, and he settled his head against the cool oak of the door, letting out a strangely whispering breath against the wood.  He turned the key in the lock without looking, and almost fell into his townhouse, the sparse furniture and the neutral shades peaceful to his sun-sore eyes.

"God," he said, half in prayer.  "What a day."

Migraine medication.  He found it, and dry-swallowed two.  Second time in a day, when he usually didn't take more than two a year.

"Well, desperate times, desperate measures."

He collapsed against the couch, feeling suddenly boneless, and tilted his head as far back against the cushions as it would go.  The muscles in his neck stretched and moaned softly in protest, but he kept going until all the give from the pillows was evenly spread out.  He kicked the loafers from his feet and raised his legs onto the rest of the sofa, closing his eyes to blot out the sight of the ceiling.  He wished the other sights were as easy to remove.

He had not raped Lizzie Zimmer.  He had not.

But now that the suspicion was cast on him, it was too easy to imagine how he could have done it.  Because she _had _wanted him, and in retrospect, it was noticeable.  Her pretty face, her pale skin the color of china, and her slim hands.  He thought about what they thought he had done to her, and blood rose to warm his face, and he couldn't think anymore, just closed his eyes against another migraine and the dark, bleak repetition of images: her blood, her nails on his skin, her screams.  His hand against her mouth.  Her face like broken china.

His damn answering machine light was flashing again.  He thumped his hand against the wide blue button, and listened.

Greg.  The boy sounded nervous, slightly panicky.  "Grissom?  Griss?  Pick up, it's really, really important - - dammit."  The last word was muttered softly, under his breath.  "Call me.  I'm still at the lab.  Something's wrong.  I mean, something else is wrong.  And I think it has something to do with you.

End of message; then another.

Greg once more, saying, "And where's Nick, anyway?  He hasn't been around all day.  Has something happened?  Do you know?"

That was all there was.  He listened to the shushed whirring sound as the answering machine rewound its tape, and he deleted both messages.  His hand hovered over the phone to call Greg - - he owed Greg something, at least, after the boy had nervously come into the break room to offer his loyalty like some anachronistic knight errant.  But the pain behind his temples was fierce, and he dropped his hand down to his side, the image of Lizzie Zimmer's broken skin still fresh in his mind.

He called Nick, who would have no questions.

Nick answered, sounding groggy.  "Stokes."

"It's Grissom.  Are you in Boston yet?"

"Only about another half-hour of flight.  I'm eating peanuts and talking to a lawyer.  Is there something you wanted?"  Nick sounded guarded; almost tense.

"Is there something you can't say?"

"There's a lot.  Listen, I should probably go.  I'm going to get some more sleep on the plane so I can be fresh for the wedding rehearsal tomorrow.  Best man, you know."

A cover story.  He hadn't thought of that - - but he should have.  He should have been the one holding things together, but instead, he was letting it all fall apart underneath his fingertips.  Like Sara.  He never should have said those things to Sara when she stopped by looking for Greg.  He should have kept his mouth shut, or been rude, or been anything but what he was.  He shouldn't have been so weak around her - - shouldn't have:

_His voice, so begging, so needy, asking of Sara what he hadn't asked from Greg, but had gotten anyway.  "Do you believe them?"_

_Her voice, intense, focused.  "No.  Never."_

_"Thank you, Sara."  He never should have smiled at her.  Never should have let that glimmer of affection - - of longing - - of. . . love? - - show in his eyes, as he knew he had.  "That means - - that means a lot to me."_

Shouldn't have.

"Hey, man," Nick said, uneasily.  "Still with me here?"

"Sure," he said, pulling out of his reverie.  "I like your cover story, by the way."

"Well, it's been a long time coming.  I always knew old Steve was really finding something special with Lindsey Willows, and now I know I'm right."

Grissom smiled.  "Don't play it up too much, Nick.  Stay low-profile, and I hope you can turn something up.  Good luck."

They said their goodbyes, Nick sounding determined again,  Grissom settled the phone back in the cradle and held his head in his hands, wondering what he was doing with Nick.  Nick wanted approval.  He wanted - - encouragement.  Trust.  And Grissom was giving it to him, so he was happy.  Nick probably understood that he was the one who was trusted, the one who was sent east on a pilgrimage for truth.  Nick was getting what he wanted.

And Grissom had given it to him so selfishly.

As T.S. Eliot had said, the last temptation was the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.

He felt suddenly woozy, and sat down hard in the chair by the phone, screwing his eyes shut and throwing his head back against the cushion.  _This is my last temptation.  This is my greatest treason.  What I'm doing here is wrong.  I'm doing the wrong things.  Something about this is worse than I've realized, and I'm handling it wrong.  I'm not doing the right things, but I don't know what the right things are, and something's going to happen.  I can almost hear it starting - - a smell like lightning, a taste like burning metal . . . oh God, the hum of machinery under the ground . . . the bright crimson blood. . ._

He shook his head, and it was like shaking an Etch-a-Sketch: the thoughts fled.  He wasn't prone to omens, and the persistence of the images was . . . unsettling.

He should call Greg.  If sending Nick to Boston on a wild goose chase for all the wrong reasons was his greatest treason, then maybe, calling Greg would . . . balance the scales.  Right thing; right reason.  Maybe he would feel more confident, then, in his ability to handle the situation.  Maybe his hands wouldn't feel so close to shaking.

He picked up the phone again, and hesitated.

_Am I afraid of this?  Am I afraid of calling him?  What am I afraid that he might know?  
  
_

_Everything_, he thought, his muscles locking in terror, _everything!  What if he knows everything?  What if he knows?  What if he saw something when we talked and he knows now - - knows me, knows everything?  What if he knows - - _

_Knows what? _the rational part of his brain retorted.  _What on earth is there to know?_

_Sara - -_

_There's nothing to know about Sara, _he told himself sharply.  _There's nothing.  I don't have to care about that right now.  I'm strictly entitled not to think about that right now.  Nothing happened, and nothing's going to happen.  Nothing _ever _happened between us, not ever.  Not here, not last year, and not - - not in Boston - -_

That was, of course, what he was afraid Greg had somehow discovered.

Boston, Harvard, 1998.  Not Lizzie; but Sara.  Not rape; but . . . pursuit.  That he had been offered a teaching position - - forensics science - - at Harvard was no secret.  That he had refused it was also no secret; the records were there for everyone to see, and he had, at least, told Catherine about it.  What he had never mentioned - - what he did not know if anyone else had found out - - was that he had been carefully warned off from the position, even though he'd had no thoughts of taking it.

The administration had not noticed how he looked at the girl in the front row with the long brown hair and the delicate smile, but someone else had.

A law student, a teaching assistant, young, slim, and dark-haired, with a voice too cultured by half.  Grissom had suspected some kind of British ancestry in him, but he had been thinking about other things when the T.A. had approached and warned him against taking the job offer.  He hadn't wanted money - - it wasn't blackmail.  He had simply told Grissom that the lecturer's lingering glances at Sara hadn't gone unnoticed, and asked that he not take the job for that very reason.  Rumors could be started.  Professors weren't supposed to sleep with students, the T.A. had said with a smile, and after all . . .

He hadn't asked for money.

_"What do you want?"_

_That smile.  "Control, Dr. Grissom.  I take psychology in addition to law, and with so many things out of my control, it's refreshing, in a way, to be sure that I can understand and take advantage of something."_

He had been the kind of young man likely to sleep with a professor for the top grades, and then report the same professor for indecent conduct, always managing to come out smelling like roses.  Grissom had had enough sense to be wary of him, if not afraid - - the young man hadn't wanted anything that was too expensive to give.

He didn't take the job, and as the years wound by, and he never heard from the boy again, he knew that it had been a one-time occasion.  He was never going to be blackmailed for having an attraction to his student, as much as he had worried after calling Sara to Vegas.

Nothing happened.

But now something might.  All the seeds were planted, and if that young man - - so determined to make lawyers deserve their nasty reputation - - was still in Boston, still circling Harvard, he might hear, and might, again, take advantage of his control.  Grissom was sure that he hadn't mellowed with the added years.

He was confident that that T.A. had become a success.  He'd had the right traits to be successful: amorality, and fearlessness.

Yes, he would have made a terrific lawyer.

But Greg wouldn't know about that - - that couldn't be what he had been so anxious to talk about.  He certainly hadn't heard about the T.A. from Nick, because he hadn't known where Nick was, and if there had been another media squall, Grissom would have been phoned about it eight times by now.

Whatever Greg wanted, it was about something concerning Greg, personally.

With that thought in mind, he was able to call.  "Greg?"

"Grissom.  Thank God."  If Greg had sounded nervous on the machine, he sounded now like he was almost sweating with tension.  "You got my message?"

"Yes.  What is it?  You sound - - nervous."

"I _am _nervous.  Something's wrong here.  Listen, I can't tell you _what_, and I know that sounds stupid and vague, and it _is _stupid and vague, but it's true.  You haven't seen the way they're acting.  The things they're doing.  They're too close.  They aren't actors, and they can't keep up the fiction well - - it's what they _aren't_ saying, and I've been alone enough today to think about it, and something's wrong with them."

"Greg, you're babbling.  Calm down."  He didn't have the strength for this.  "Who are you talking about?"

"Ecklie and Hodges.  There's something going on there."

"Greg, if you called me just to tell me that you've heard some kind of off-the-wall gay rumor about Ecklie and Hodges - - "

"I didn't.  There's not one, so you know.  In fact, from what I've heard from Bobby and Archie, no one even remembers the two of them being so. . . so _amiable_ with each other.  I mean, Hodges is an asshole, and so is Ecklie, but I saw them, and they were fine with each other.  They're acting like they have a secret, and Hodges was pretty smug about getting to discuss it in front of me - - I mean, of _course_, he was, he's just the kind of guy to want to get some walkie-talkies and get code names if he ever had something going behind the scenes - - he was _flaunting _it, and it was making Ecklie nervous."

"You're still babbling."

Greg swore softly into the telephone, and Grissom frowned.  Greg had never done that before; cursed, yes, but not _at _him.  Not in that quiet, intense manner.

"Are you getting any of this, or should I just go bury my head in the sand like everyone else?  Surrender to the fact that it might just all be my neuroses?"

"No, Greg," he said.  "I'm getting it.  But you have to understand - - nothing you're giving me is concrete.  You said Hodges was flaunting something in front of Ecklie, and it was making Ecklie nervous.  That's all circumstantial.  What did they _say_?  Tell me what they _did_.  Give me some evidence to work with."

Greg sounded almost desperate.  "Grissom, sometimes there _isn't_ any evidence."

"There's always evidence."

"Not when the crime hasn't happened yet!"

"Greg, you're sounding like a psychic on a bad day," he said, and it came out sounding sharper than he'd intended.  "You can't see omens everywhere you look.  I know the situation is tense, but - -"

"But you don't believe me.  But you just think I'm overreacting.  Dammit, Grissom, I _came to you_.  I told you that I was on your side, and you can't even believe me enough to watch out for them. . ."

That cursing again.  That high, almost panicky anxiety.

Greg quieted without being spoken to, and the line was deathly silent.  He could hear the hum of passing electricity.  "Fine," Greg said.  "Fine.  Okay.  I was just trying to help, you know that, right, Grissom?  I was just trying to help."

"I know, Greg," he said, as gently as he could.  He shouldn't have snapped at the boy, not when Greg was so obviously earnest.  "Take care.  I'll see you tomorrow."

"Fine," Greg said again, and Grissom was suddenly drowning in the silky silence of the dead line.

He put the phone down, and stared at it for a long time.

_You can't see omens everywhere you look._

_The hum of machinery - - of conspiracy - - the smell of lightning and a coming storm, and most damning of all, that scarlet pattern of blood. . ._

_You can't see omens everywhere you look._

_I was just trying to help._

_The last temptation is the greatest treason. . ._

"I'm not going to think about this," he said into the pure quiet of his apartment.  "I'm _not _going to think about this."

And so he didn't.


	9. Profaning Holy Ground

I'm making everyone nervous.

That's _awesome_.

- -

Chapter Nine: Profaning Holy Ground (SARA)

- -

She hadn't been in a church in years. It had odd associations with her - - the scratchy feeling of lace against her skin, the dark, old wood of pews, and her mother's hand against hers. The old leather smell of the Bible, and the maps in the back, with their glossy colors. But churches had changed since her time spent in them years ago, and this church was bright and colorful - - smooth, white, adobe walls, and posters. She thought it probably played rock hymns while people danced in the aisles.

But underneath the superficial shine, the old religion feeling was the same. This was still, as her mother would say, a house of God, and it would do very well for praying.

It was almost empty. A choir was rehearsing in an adjacent room, by the sound, and there were a few people praying in the pews. Sara slid into an empty pew near the back, and bent her head. Her hair fell forward, covering her face like a veil, and her neck, newly bare, grew chilled, but she didn't adjust it.

She prayed.

It was something like prayer, anyway, although she didn't really think and certainly didn't form words. She just poured her anxiety out towards the ceiling and hoped that some way on their path to the rafters, they were taken further by God.

Someone's hand touched her shoulder.

"Sorry to bother you," a sweet, feminine voice said, "but I was just thinking - - what an incredible coincidence this is."

Lizzie Zimmer.

"An incredible coincidence," Sara said faintly, lifting her head, with a silent twisting of her heart in despair, because Lizzie's appearance seemed likely to be the first in a string of unanswered prayers. "Sure. Do you want to sit down?"

Lizzie smiled, and shook her head. "No, thanks. I was looking for you, though, so it isn't really a coincidence. I don't remember you being religious in college."

"We weren't close," Sara said, hoping her smile was disarming enough to inspire confidence, but Lizzie's own, with a touch of venom, neither faded nor widened.

"No, we weren't. And we aren't now. You don't teach at any university. You work with the crime lab. With - - Dr. Grissom. You lied to me." This all came out very smoothly, very _professionally_, as if Lizzie had been practicing these lines in a mirror hours before meeting up with her in the church. Looking at Lizzie's bitten fingernails and the set lines of her face, Sara thought that was likely.

"Yeah, I lied," she said, since there was no point in denial, and possibly a lot of hurt. Lizzie had already found everything out. "It didn't make any difference."

"I hope you're not going to tell me that you were hoping to sell my story to some more newspapers," Lizzie said, with a slightly faltering tone at Sara's agreement. "I know better than that. I don't know you very well, but I know better than that."

"He didn't do it," she said. "Maybe someone else did, but he didn't. He wouldn't have touched you."

"No," Lizzie said, "just you, right?"

"Shut up," Sara said, and was surprised to hear the words coming out of her mouth. Gone was the pleasant, plastic friendliness of their earlier meeting - - now everything was sour, and sharp, like barbed wire.

"I heard," Lizzie said. "Don't think I didn't hear. Don't think everyone doesn't _know_."

Sara pulled her purse off the pew next to her and tried hard to keep her voice down. She thought of Catherine, hard as nails, and Warrick, so shielded by that impenetrable aura of cool. She wondered if anyone ever tried to comfort themselves by thinking of being her. "You don't know anything. You don't know me at all. And you don't know him at all. I'm leaving now. Goodbye."

"This will be all over the press," Lizzie said, and to Sara's surprise, it was almost a hiss. "This won't go away, Sara."

"I'm leaving," Sara said again. She cast a glance around the church, and saw, to her relief, that no one seemed to be watching them. To an observer, they were simply two women in conversation. Maybe even friends. Certainly not two enemies, desperately searching for weak spots. "You should probably stay here. I imagine you have a lot to pray about."

She left Lizzie alone in the church, and for a second, the walls seemed to shift, and she could almost hear her mother's voice whispering to her, asking her to stop drawing on the program and pay attention. She looked behind her and saw that Lizzie's head was bent in prayer, and a bolt of shame lanced through her, so strong that she grabbed the pew next to her in an effort to keep herself upright.

It was wrong. Lizzie was a liar. Lizzie was trying to frame Grissom for something he had never, ever done, and never, ever would have done - -

_(are you so sure of that?)_

- - and she did, really, have a lot to pray about. Mercy. Forgiveness.

But there was something else. Lizzie had been trying to tell her something. She had been trying to _say_ something - - and for a moment, she turned around. There had been something in Lizzie's eyes, some - - otherness. Something important.

But nothing changed, there was no sudden insight, and Lizzie did not come running from the church doors.

It would be easy to keep walking, but she had never been the kind of person to do the easy thing. She'd torture herself endlessly if she thought what she was doing would have to be done, so, with that in mind, and, hating this view of herself, walked back inside. The church was quieter. The choir had stopped rehearsing.

And Lizzie was praying.

It was a reversal of situations - - she walked over and rested her hand against Lizzie's shoulder. Lizzie looked up, and it was suddenly possible for Sara to see the girl she had known in college behind those cold eyes. Lizzie was pretty, but so _delicate_, and in the slanting bars of light coming through the church windows, her face seemed pale, and breakable. Her hands, splayed across each other, squirmed.

There were tearstains on her face.

Sara felt frozen. Ice. Cooler than cool. She was freezing. How could it be so cold in Las Vegas? In the middle of the desert?

Oh God, was she still in Boston? Was she still in Harvard, wrapped up in dark scarves and long, deep blue coats, shivering against the cold, laughing with a California girl's naïve delight when she saw her breath freeze in the air? Was she still sitting in a seminar with an alluring lecturer, watching Gil Grissom pin bugs to a board? Was Lizzie sitting next to her?

The room seemed to spin.

_Where am I? When is this?_

She was understanding too much of the situation, and far too rapidly. Lizzie's face seemed to grow blurry and young, the harshness disappearing from her eyes. A flutter of a smile. A secret, high-pitched giggle. A blue plaid skirt against her legs instead of the professional's pantsuit.

"Someone _did _hurt you," Sara said. "Someone did, didn't they?"

Lizzie's face was set, like concrete. "Dr. Grissom. I told you."

"No, not him. He wouldn't. He wouldn't," she told herself. "But someone - - you were happier, and something happened - - that's why you changed - - why you're broken- -"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lizzie said, and maybe they were in a Boston winter after all, because Lizzie's voice was frosty. "I'm not broken. _I'm completely in control_."

"We tell ourselves that," Sara said shakily, "but I know - -"

"You don't know anything about me," Lizzie said. "You haven't changed. You'll never understand. You don't know what it was like."

"I've processed - -"

"Observation is not a replacement for experience. You'll _never _understand. You're just like them. They're all the same. All men are the same, Sara Sidle, class of 1998, and the sooner you realize that, the better. Your precious Dr. Grissom isn't any different from the rest of them. Sometimes they give you chances - - and sometimes they take them away."

Lizzie stood, and Sara realized for the first time that Lizzie was taller than she was by a few inches. Lizzie seemed willowy and likely to snap. Sara took a step backwards, and collided with a stack of Bibles. Her skin felt tight, and she could hear her own heartbeat doubling; tripling. Her breath was shallow.

"All you can do," Lizzie said, smiling, "is take your chances when you get them."


	10. Let's Go

- -

Chapter Ten: Let's Go (NICK)

- -

By noon, he had found only one person who was willing to talk.  She was a mousy little thing, with an anxious smile, and frequent apologies, but she had been a close friend of Lizzie's all through college, and she was the best Nick had found.  He tried to use all of his people skills to calm her, and cosset her.  He charmed.  He cajoled.  She softened, and by the time he had gotten around to asking the harder questions, Amy Tulles was more than capable of answering them, and well.

Nick crossed his legs and pretended to like his orange-flavored tea.  "Did Miss Zimmer ever tell you - - around about the time of her graduation - - that she had been, well, sexually assaulted?"  He gave her an apologetic smile.  He was one of the good guys.  Butter couldn't melt in his mouth.  He didn't want Amy to look timid again, so he tried his best to look as if he were embarrassed to even have mentioned sex.

"Well," Amy said slowly, dragging the word out for several seconds, "I'm not sure."

"You don't remember?"

"She was - - she, well - - "  Amy frowned.  "She was _ambiguous_."

"How so?"

"It was around exam-time.  She lost heart, sort of.  She didn't study.  She used to have really long hair, real pretty, and she cut it all short."

Nick didn't know how well he could analyze a woman's decision to get a haircut, but he was hazarding a guess - - if Lizzie really had been assaulted, never mind by who, for the moment, than ridding herself of her most valuable asset might be her attempt to avoid more masculine attention.  He felt his first stab of pity for the girl, as distant and removed as Amy's Lizzie was from the one accusing Grissom.

_Come on, Nicky, let's go._

_Let's make it._

"Mr. Stokes?" Amy asked, concerned.  "Is it too cold in here for you?"  She peered at him through her glasses, looking anxious again.  "You were shivering."

"No, I'm fine," Nick said slowly.  "I was just thinking - - it would be such a horrible thing to go through, for anyone, if it did happen to her.  The pain.  The . . . humiliation."

_Don't tell anyone, Nicky.  Sweet Nicky._

"Horrible," Amy agreed, and in her voice were a thousand comforting platitudes.  Meaningless phrases, taken from a book.  A stranger's sympathy.  The ignorant belief that she, without the actual experience, could somehow console a victim.

Catherine had had that same look, once upon a time, and he had been grateful for her touch and her kindness, but resented it at the same time.  Catherine didn't _know_.  Catherine hadn't been the one on the bed with a hand over her mouth, and a soft, placating voice whispering, smooth and silky as honey, that he shouldn't tell anyone, because they'd think he was dirty.  Catherine hadn't been the one shuddering on top of the covers, waiting for a mother that was late, so late, too late - -

He cleared his throat and tried to orient his thoughts, searching for the perfect magnet to turn his mind elsewhere, and on the right path.

"Did Lizzie have a boyfriend?  Someone I could talk to?"

Amy smiled.  "Oh yeah.  She was crazy for him."

"Was?  I take it that there's no connection now, then.  Is he still in town?"

"God, no."  Amy laughed.  "I don't even know where he lives, but it's weird, you asking about Lincoln.  I mean, what with him being the one helping Lizzie out now, and everything.  Weird.  Kinda ironic, you know?"

Lincoln and Lizzie.  It had an offbeat rhythm to it.

"Helping her?  How so?"

"Oh, Lincoln went to Harvard, too.  Law, though, not medicine.  I'm pretty sure he met Lizzie at a party - - they got along really well.  They don't date anymore, but I think they're still pretty tight.  I mean, he was the only guy Lizzie would talk to near the end of her last year."

She had not answered his question.  Nick put his cup of tea down on the table and leaned forward, smiling, trying to radiate earnestness and niceness.

"How is Lincoln helping Lizzie?"

"Oh!"  Amy blushed.  "Sorry.  He's her lawyer.  In that thing she's doing now.  That rape charge.  Yeah.  He's taking care of everything for her.  Pretty much pulling the strings, from what _I _heard."

Great.  So now, he would have to contend with a lawyer.  Impossible to do _that_ and still keep a low profile.  He might be going home earlier than he thought.  Too bad, too, because an ex-lover, around about the time of Lizzie had pinpointed her sexual assault, would have otherwise become a likely suspect, or, at the very least, a good informant.

Amy was smiling at him, wistfully.  "Yeah, those were the days, you know?"

Nick pretended that he knew.

"I mean, me, Steve - - Steve was my old boyfriend - - Lizzie, and good old Abraham Lincoln."  Amy giggled.  "We teased him so much for that."

The first real smile of the day broke over Nick's face.  "The guy was really named Abraham Lincoln?  That's _awesome_."  He didn't think he could have kept a straight face on the plane, as tense as his nerves had been, if Claberson had introduced himself as Abraham Lincoln.  He would have laughed like a maniac.

"Oh, no," Amy said.  "We just _called_ him Lincoln, because of his first name."

Nick felt a little disappointed.  It was a little bit of a let-down, but probably no one with the last name Lincoln would name a kid Abe anymore.  It was just an invitation for teasing.

"His real name's Abraham _Claberson_," Amy said.  "God, a kid named Abraham Lincoln - - that would be really embarrassing, don't you think?"

He couldn't move.  Couldn't think.  He had fucked up very, very badly, and just a second ago, things had been going so well.  If Claberson investigated Grissom's team - - as Claberson most certainly would - - he would know.  He would run across Nick's name and remember it, and know that there was no wedding, no excuse, no answers - -  All the low-profile stuff he'd been enjoying so much and trying to maintain; gone.  Grissom's trust; gone.  He had fucked them all over, and now Claberson would know, and Zimmer would know.  They would have fresh new accusations to throw at Grissom.

He could almost hear them in his head:

_Gil Grissom sent Nick Stokes to Boston_, he could hear Ole Honest Abe saying in that pedantic British voice of his, _to erase any latent evidence of the crime, to sully my client's reputation, and to interfere with the judicial process.  See, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Grissom's real mistake was counting on a perpetual screw-up like Nick Stokes.  If he had sent someone else, I might never have been able to reveal this crucial information to you.  So thank God and holy angels that Grissom sent the only one that was replaceable.  Because we all know that Nicky Stokes has always been prone to the horrible anti-self-esteem syndrome: the best he can do is simply not good enough._

And then, softer, made buttery and translucent by memory and fear, _Come on, Nicky, let's go._

He smiled.  He drank his orange tea.  He saw his reflection in Amy's eyes, and he saw, with dull satisfaction, that he looked perfectly normal and perfectly fine.  Which was a cop-out, and a damned shameful one, because why _couldn't_ he just open his mouth and say, "I'm not fine"?  Why did he have to be a fiction every time he seemed close to losing his grip?

Because sometimes the lie was easier than the truth.

"Thank you for your time," Nick said politely, rising.  "You've been very helpful.  I can't say how much.  Really."

Amy flushed.  She was cute.  She liked him.  And normally, it would have been enough of a jumping point - - he would have turned the moment into some kind of a date, and he would have enjoyed it, too.  He _would _have.

But he was sick with guilt, and the first image that came into his head was his hand on Amy's neck, and his _own _voice whispering, _Let's go.  Let's make it_, in her ear.  He wouldn't, he had never done it, and never wanted to do it, but right now, the idea was too strong to encourage him to even risk a date.  He felt queasy.

Amy said something.  He replied.

He had no idea what she'd asked or what he'd answered, but he knew by her smile that he must have said the right thing, the polite thing, the nice thing, and he nodded at her and thanked her again.

On the lawn, the cool green grass beneath his shoes, he called Vegas - - Grissom's cell.  The phone rang and went unanswered.  Irritated, and still sickened at his own screw-up, he tried Grissom's house phone, but there was, again, no answer.  He couldn't bring himself to leave his information in a message.  He tried Catherine; Warrick; Sara.  Brass.  Incommunicado.

He blamed his cell phone.  Crappy reception.

He closed his eyes and dialed Greg's number blind.  Greg wasn't who he needed, because it wouldn't do any good to tell Greg about Claberson when Greg had no connection to the case, but it would be soothing to hear a familiar voice.  And besides, Greg always answered his cell phone.  Greg could talk for ten minutes with wrong numbers.

No answer.  His phone turned to pure static, and he was almost relieved to find out that it _was _the reception after all, because if _no one_ were answering their phone, circumstances back home were bad.  Very bad indeed.  As is, things had probably cleared up already.

They were probably doing better than he was, anyway.

He didn't want to use the phone in his hotel room - - no more screw-ups.  If Claberson had been playacting on the plane about not knowing him, then the phone could already be bugged.  Never put anything past a lawyer, particularly one working for the bad guys.  So he couldn't call until his connection cleared up.

He was cut off.


	11. Shots

You're all dead-on with your descriptions of horrible bad luck, and yeah, nothing (well, almost nothing) in this story is a positive coincidence, at least.  If there are coincidences, they're usually going to be for the worst. . .

Now we have Warrick, interspaced with some Greg, and then the next chapter is to be Catherine, then the conspirators-POV, and then, part two.

- -

Chapter Eleven: Shots (WARRICK)

- -****

The whole place smelled like cigarettes, but neither one of them was smoking.  They rounded the pool table, holding the billiards delicately between their fingertips, and making their shots against the green felt.  Greg looked sallow in the dull yellow lights, and the blue chalk on the palms of his hands made them vanish when he dropped them low over the table.  Warrick watched him, admiring a quality he had never seen in Greg before; a certain caged stillness.  Greg looked restless, but _focused_, as if his entire world had narrowed to the scope of the single game.  His mouth was a thin, white line.

"Something wrong?"  Warrick waved away the passing waitress's offer of another drink.  The first two beers were already buzzing between his temples, and he wanted to be safe for the drive home.  "You're being quiet."

"I'm concentrating," Greg said shortly.

"You talked to Grissom, didn't you?"

Greg lowered his cue to the table, drew it back between his finger, and tapped it against the cue ball.  The striped nine dropped into the corner pocket.  He didn't look up, even as the ball thudded into the leather basket with the others.

"What's there to talk to Grissom about?"

"This Zimmer thing," Warrick said.  He licked his lips and searched for a good shot, but couldn't find one on the table.  He leaned his billiard against the table and took some time to chalk up.  "You've got that look."

"I don't have a look.  Make your shot."

"And you've got that tone," he said.  He felt more confident around Greg, glad that he had regained the control he'd lost around Catherine and Sara.  Greg, as silent and unnerving as his mood was at the moment, was not likely to toss him off-balance.  "You sound like a puppy that just got kicked back to the curb.  So I'm guessing that you tried to tell him something that he didn't want to hear, and he told you off for it."

"He didn't tell me off," Greg said.  "He just didn't listen."

"That bugs you?"

"That doesn't surprise me.  But yeah, it bugs me.  A little."  Greg, too, leaned his billiard against the table.  The closed look was leaving his face, being replaced by a kind of desperate earnestness that Warrick didn't like much, either.  "I was trying to help him.  Do him a favor.  There's something weird going on right now."

"There's a _lot _of weird going on right now."

"I tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen.  He thinks I'm paranoid."

"Are you?"

"Probably.  Does it make any difference?  He's still in trouble, whether I'm paranoid or not."

"No," Warrick said, thinking about the shine in Catherine's eyes when they had talked.  "No.  There's not really a difference."  He picked up the billiard and made a useless shot.  The ball skidded over the felt, hitting nothing, changing nothing.  The constellation of stripes and solids didn't move across the table.  He hadn't managed to change the fates or rearrange the stars by a single shot, and he felt absurdly disappointed.

"You want to tell me what's bothering you, then?"  Greg stood at the corner, evaluating his shot.  The openness had left him; he was still again, but in the shadows, his face looked softer, more innocent.  "You've got a problem, too."

"Nick, I guess."

The screen of calm around Greg shattered.  He leaned forward on the table, his hands pressing against the wooden border and smearing blue chalk over it.  "Nick?  I haven't seen him all day.  Where _is _he?"

"Boston."

Greg whistled.  The sound came out low and impressive between his teeth.  He accepted another drink - - his second - - from the waitress, and then went back to staring at Warrick.  "Grissom sent him, right?"

"Right."

"So Grissom trusts somebody."

"Yeah."

"Just not us.  And _that's _what's bugging _you_."  Head down, until the nape of his neck glowed in the lemony light.  The billiard back, and then released.  It was a clean shot - - he sent the cue ball rolling into the twelve, and tapping it straight into the pocket.  Greg smiled.  "We're dead even.  And there's the eight."

The eight ball perched in the middle of the table.  It was dull and scratched, but it cast a wide, lumpish shadow all around it, and, looking at it, Warrick felt something tighten in his throat, like a corkscrew.  He was glad that his one remaining ball, the six, was far from it, and unlikely to collide.  The eight looked filthy.  He didn't want anything touching it.

"Yeah," he said.  "That's bothering me."

Voice melodious, controlled.  _Cool_.  He had this down.

Grin in place, he made his shot, but the cue ball clipped off the six and it stopped just short of the corner pocket.  He muttered a curse, straightening up, feeling the muscles uncoil in his back and shoulders - - he'd been so tense for that shot - - and saw Greg glancing at him, pleased, and trying to hide it.

"Tough luck," Greg said, with a smile in his voice.

"Oh, piss on _that_," Warrick retorted, still grinning.  "Your turn, man.  See if you do any better - - that's an impossible shot if I ever saw one."

"Yeah, but I'm a master at pool."  Greg called his pocket, then bent almost double over the table, his head so slow that his nose was almost touching the felt.  His eyes were cocoa-dark, and fixed straight ahead on the impossible shot.  If he made it, Warrick would be one of the converted.  Greg's red-striped ten was almost against the edge of the table, and his one hope was to bounce the cue off the current side and hope it ricocheted back at the most impossible angle _ever_.

"Not a chance, master," Warrick said.

Greg didn't lift his head - - that same focus had overtaken him again.  He drew his billiard back and struck it against the cue with a loud snapping noise.

Warrick watched it, knowing the shot was hopeless but somehow chained to it anyway.  The cue ball cracked against the felt and tore backwards over the table, and he drew in a deep breath, thinking, _Well, he won't make it, but it'll be damned _close_, anyway_.  The cue collided right next to the ten, and Greg, who had been standing at the edge with his eyes blazing and his fists curled, let out a soft sigh and relaxed.

"Tough - - " Warrick began, and meant to end with, "luck," and turned to pick up his billiard when he heard the cue crack again.

Rotating on his heels in a motion that could have burned rubber, he saw the cue resting an inch from the left side pocket, and the black idol - -

_(I mean the _eight ball_, the fucking _eight ball_, what am I talking about?)_

- - had vanished neatly from the table.

Greg, next to him, dropped down into almost a hunch over the table, head cradled in his hands.  "Oh damn," Greg said, in a childishly proper voice that sounded innocently amusing to Warrick, even in his distraction.  "I'll buy your next drink, I guess."  He grinned.  "Tough luck for me, right?"

"_Bad_ luck," Warrick said.  "My grandma always told me that hitting in the eight ball isn't just how you lose the game, it's how you get bad luck.  Old superstition.  Like stepping on cracks or breaking mirrors."

"Walking under ladders."

"Spilling salt."

"Black cats crossing your path."

"Yeah," Warrick said.  "Like that.  I mean, don't let it get your hackles up, man."  He clapped Greg on the shoulder, feeling unexpectedly jovial and almost high from his win, even if Greg's accident had won it for him.  "Just save your beer money and buy yourself a lucky rabbit's foot.  I should get home anyway."

"Yeah," Greg said slowly, still looking at the table, bare except for the three remaining balls.  "Me too.  Need some sleep.  Today was a long day, and tomorrow's gonna be worse."

"Don't I know it," Warrick said, grimacing.  "Catherine and I are scheduled to talk with Covallo tomorrow about maybe having the lab cough up some settlement money for Grissom.  Technically, it's unethical, and we'd have to hush it up - - but Covallo's kept a reserve in our cash storage since the eighties, and Grissom would, you know, reimburse him."

"I'd like to get this all out of the way," Greg said, cleaning off the table.  "Sooner the better.  It's making me antsy."

"Antsy is your natural condition," Warrick said indulgently.

"Hey, tomorrow, stop by the lab and tell me how it went with Covallo.  I hate being in the dark."  Greg frowned.  "And maybe tell me where I can buy a rabbit's foot."

"Novelty shop, but, seriously, calm down."

"I'm calm.  I'm cool.  I'm in control.  I just want a lucky rabbit's foot so I don't wake up with leprosy or something.  That's not superstition, that's just - - well, okay, it's superstition.  Just don't tell anyone, okay?"

"You're the one calling the shots," Warrick said.

Greg lifted the eight ball out of its pocket and stared at it, grimly.  "Didn't call this one."


	12. I Do This Because I Love You

Glad to have garnered some new readers!  Thanks for your comments and welcome.  Hope I don't disturb you too much.

And, for the record, this is a story with four parts, although the fourth part is really more of a two-chapter epilogue.

Oh, and I don't hate Catherine.  Really.  I promise.  And you can't say that she's not the only character in this story that's a little unadjusted.

Chapter Twelve: I Do This Because I Love You (CATHERINE)

She kissed Lindsey goodbye before her daughter even woke up.  There was a butterfly pattern of sunshine on Lindsey's cheek, and Catherine traced it with her fingers.

Two hours later, sitting in Covallo's office with Warrick scrunched next to her in too-tight chairs, she was holding on to the memory of that fragile, intangible butterfly as tightly as she was holding on to the arms of the chair.  Covallo, snide and insufferable as always, had been lecturing to them in that mellifluous, blueblood tone of his since they entered the office.  They were to understand that he was going to try to do everything for Grissom.  They were to understand that he couldn't do as much as he'd like for Grissom.  They were to understand that the lab's reputation was at stake.

They were to understand a lot of things, apparently, and Catherine bit her tongue to restrain the suggestion that maybe Covallo should start understanding how to read a clock, so he would see how much time was going by and maybe, sometime, get to a point.

Warrick was wearing a faded black jacket, even in the warmth of the room, and Catherine could almost feel the heat baking from him.  She hovered her hand over his elbow and blanked out Covallo until the sound of his voice was a distant rise and fall, like the sound of waves breaking against the beach.

_She's in love with him._

_Like you never were?  
  
_

And yes, yes, she had been, of _course_ she had been.  He had pulled her from some level of life that she no longer liked to think about.  She was no longer on display, she no longer needed the momentary thrill of the coke rushing through her bloodstream, and that was because of Grissom.  She had no illusions about that.  How could she resist falling in love with someone like that?  How could she resist making him a hero?

She had said nothing; done nothing; and the feelings had faded until Grissom was her best friend, and nothing more.  When she slept with men, it wasn't Grissom's eyes she thought about.  She didn't imagine his hands on her breasts and belly, didn't imagine the intense look in his eyes near the end.  She never said his name.

When she had the urge to do that, she controlled it.

But Warrick was lean and beautiful and Warrick had Grissom's eyes.  He had a musician's hands and lips made for kissing, made to be kissed.  Warrick wasn't Grissom, couldn't be Grissom, but Warrick was something in his own right, and, looking at him in the slow revolving heat of Covallo's office, Catherine thought that she could finally love someone who wasn't Grissom, finally appreciate a man for something other than how he reminded her of what she couldn't have.

And if she were tempted, he still had Grissom's eyes.  Those calm, iceberg eyes.

"Of course," Warrick said.  His voice was level.  He looked at her, and, with a small smile, squeezed her hand.  "We're better with the press anyway."

She nodded.  She didn't know what she was agreeing to, but Warrick was smiling and Covallo, if not happy, was at least looking grudgingly approving.

"I'll see what I can do about a small interview," Covallo said considerately, as if he were throwing them the ultimate bone.  "And I'll begin making the preliminary steps in a compromise with Ms. Zimmer's lawyer."

"Thank you, sir," Catherine said, wanting the lead again, frustrated at herself for not having a clue about what had preceded this part of the conversation.  "That's appreciated."

"His reputation will take a hit," Covallo said, rubbing his chin, "but the lab's won't, not if this is carefully handled.  And this _will_ be carefully handled, correct?  You'll have no problems?  The two of you are supposed to be better with people than some of Grissom's team - - I didn't want Ms. Sidle, although Stokes would be nice, except he's vanished."

Warrick's shoe nudged hers under the desk.

"Vacation," Warrick said smoothly.

"Well, he picked a damn inconvenient moment."

"Don't we know it," Catherine said with a smile, hating Covallo for bringing it up.

She waited until he had accepted that as a valid response, and then crossed her legs and let the smile fade as he kept talking.

What she had agreed to, apparently, was a discussion with a few select members of the press.  She and Warrick were supposed to calm them down and convince them that the story was boring and utterly unworthy of their time.  They were strictly forbidden to tantalize, denied opportunity to dramatize, and instructed only to soothe.

"Be as dull and uninteresting as humanly possible," Covallo said.

_Maybe you should do the interview, then_, Catherine thought.  _Since you're so good at it._

She and Warrick escaped, and in the cooler air of the hallway, she fell against him and breathed.  "God, I hate him."

"He's detestable," Warrick agreed, but he looked as if he were miles away.  "When are you going to be ready for this?"

She looked up at him and stepped back, their closeness suddenly uncomfortable.  "What do you mean?  I'm ready."

"You aren't," he said gently.  "You zoned out in there.  Is there something wrong with Lindsey?  Anything I can do to help?"

"Home's fine," Catherine said dismissively.  "It's all of this that's worrying me.  It's just a little too much, if you know what I mean.  Why accuse Grissom of rape years after it's supposed t have happened?"

"Any evidence is gone," Warrick said.  "That's what I've been suspecting, anyway.  Zimmer knows that no one can prove that Grissom didn't rape her when there's no evidence to the contrary.  And any scandal is a bad scandal.  It's still hurting him."

"But it's not enough.  Sure, there's not any evidence to the contrary, but there's not any evidence working in her favor, either.  You think it's just for the scandal?"

Warrick's eyes looked opaque and unreadable.  "I don't know.  I keep trying to think about it, but I can't seem to get it straight.  A scandal's bad, but by itself, it'll fade away.  There have been worse accusations, and Grissom's not a celebrity.  The public won't remember forever.  It's too small.  It's all too small.  And every time I try to connect all the dots, I get the feeling that I'm missing something important."

He sounded frustrated, almost angry.  She steadied him with a hand on his arm, thoughts of sex and iceberg eyes suddenly far away.  Warrick was working on something, he was desperately close to some kind of revelation, and he needed her help.

"What?  What are you missing?"

He rubbed at his temples.  "I don't know.  It just doesn't make any sense."  He smiled at her, but it looked false and unsure.  "I'm just being too suspicious.  Greg's paranoia is rubbing off on me.  Guess I need a lucky rabbit's foot, too."

"Greg's paranoid?"

"Yeah, but he won't tell me why.  We played a few games of pool last night and he lost the last one.  Knocked in the eight ball.  Scared him a little - - more than it should've.  He wants a lucky rabbit's foot now."

She waved this off.  She'd been hoping for something a little more concrete.

"I talked to Sara," she said.  "She met up with Lizzie Zimmer again."

Warrick swore under his breath and Catherine fought to control her smile.  She liked watching him lose control, just a little - - it was liberating.  Everyone else fell down day after day, but Warrick was usually so high up on his pedestal of control that she got a selfish pleasure out of watching him get knocked down.  She waited until the anger on his face was locked away into a tight, wired jaw, and continued.

"Don't worry, this time, Sara didn't go looking for her.  Lizzie found out that Sara worked for CSI, and stopped by to chat."

"Christ," Warrick said softly.  "Is she going to the press?"

"No.  Lizzie seems pretty frightened.  Sara thinks she actually _was _raped back in '98 - - probably taking her revenge any way she can.  She said something to indicate it."

"Enough to use against her?"

"No," Catherine said again.  "But enough for us to be on our guard if we ever run into her.  If she were just lying about everything, she'd be less dangerous - - but she's only making up _half _her story, and that makes it harder to break.  And she's probably convinced herself that it doesn't matter that she's fingering the wrong guy, as long as _someone_ takes the blame for what happened to her."

"I wish I understood that," Warrick said.  "Really.  But I don't."

Catherine thought about how mad she'd been when she caught Eddie cheating, and how she'd grown cold to Grissom and almost everyone else, desperate to find anyone at all who would take the burden of the blame.  "I understand it.  Enough to work with anyway."

"No," Warrick said.  "You're not going to meet up with her.  I'm not going to risk that."

She hadn't been thinking about meeting with Zimmer, but something in Warrick's tone froze her.  She tore away from him, stepped further back and held up her hands, as if he might attack at any moment.

"I don't think it's really your problem."

"Bullshit, Cath," he said quietly.  "It's everyone's problem.  You can't pretend that this is an isolated incident.  Stones leave ripples."

"You really _do_ want to be Grissom, don't you?" she asked in delight, despising herself for doing this but loving it anyway, because if Warrick could see that she had loved Grissom, then she could reverse the insight back on him, because if she had been in love with Grissom, then Warrick practically worshipped at Grissom's feet - - as bad as Nick or Greg, in that aspect, if a little more subtle.  "You're going to pick up his sayings now?"

"Stop it, Catherine.  This isn't tag."

"Of course, you _are _the favorite CSI," she said musingly, "or so we were all thinking.  Bet it really burns that Grissom sent Nick instead of you.  Bet that's why you're so pissed.  And then Sara got to talk to Lizzie Zimmer and you didn't get to do anything at all.  Sitting on the sidelines and waiting your turn like a good little boy, and you don't even get to understand Zimmer's motivations.  Guess you're screwed on this case, Warrick.  Everyone's been up to bat but you.  Even _Greg _gets to have unfound suspicions, but you?  You're still distant.  This hasn't rippled you yet."

She watched the guarded look on his face break down as Warrick Brown fell from his pedestal one final time, and she was sure that after this, he would be truly unable to ascend again.  She had ruined something for him.  The part was over.  Everybody out of the pool.

He turned from her and walked away in silence.

_But I love you_, she said in her mind, _and I wish that I didn't know how to be cruel like this, but I do, and you hurt me, so I'll hurt you, you hit me, so I'll hit back._

And the terrible, stinging ultimatum, _I do this because I love you._

_And because I'm afraid of you._

She held on to the water fountain next to Covallo's door and closed her eyes until the room could stop spinning.  She stood in the darkness for a long time.


	13. So Many Ideas

Oh - - I feel really bad about the mistake regarding Warrick's eye color - - I only remembered that they were pale, and I guess I must have mistaken them for blue.

Grr - - this is, possibly, my least favorite chapter: it's necessary, but I don't really care for it.  Still, I am really fond of the next one, starting off part two, and so if you're disappointed with this chapter, please stick around.  This one will, however, tell you the names of a great many of the conspirators - - so now, the only ones who _won't _know what's going on are . . . well, the other characters.

- -

Chapter Thirteen: So Many Ideas (OTHER)

- -

Matthew Flowers was thirty-six and already a legend.  He was what Conrad Ecklie would call a signature killer, and what he himself called an artist.  Since he was nineteen, he had killed over forty people, all with the same signature - - the white rose.  He was sometimes controlling, sometimes amiable, sometimes long-winded, and always cruel.  In his best moments - - the times when people who were frustrating him were most likely to survive - - he was extremely contemplative, as he was now.

He was thinking about the conspiracy, and decided that it was one of his better ideas.

It was ideal, after all - - it was ideally composed.  There was himself, the killer, who was ruthless and imaginative at the same time, the kind of man who did not care who he killed as long as he was allowed to do it an interesting fashion.  There was Lizzie Zimmer, embittered and not truly understanding her function (as temporary as it was), and her pet lawyer, the arrogant Abraham Claberson, so certain that he was the most necessary figure in the group, and so certain that he would live.

If Flowers killed Lizzie (as he probably would), it would be a death born of necessity, not any true lust for the kill.  If Flowers killed Claberson (as he had idly been considering), it would be because Abraham Claberson was an annoyance, and unnecessary, once they had dispensed of the dull formalities of the actual rape charge.

Flowers wasn't interested in Gil Grissom.  Flowers was interested in causing as much carnage and chaos as possible.

Flowers, Zimmer, and Claberson.  Then, of course, there was Conrad Ecklie.

He smiled when he thought about Ecklie.  If Zimmer was dim, and Claberson was frustrating, Ecklie was amusing.  Ecklie, left to his own devices, would have never had the stones to do anything to Grissom, as much as Grissom was a thorn in his side.  Ecklie had been content to broil and act-out petty revenge scenes in his head, and to, on occasion, pursue possible avenues of Grissom's downfall, as long as he made no actual _actions_ towards fulfilling these bewildered daydreams.

Flowers knew that Ecklie thought he had been found out because he had asked too many questions about the perfect man to arrange some kind of ruination for Grissom.  Ecklie was damaged by this, and Flowers enjoyed watching him squirm with guilt as Flowers built the petty rape accusation into something far more grand and far more deadly.

Ecklie thought that he was the figurehead, the leader.  He no longer had any illusion that he was in _control _of Flowers, and he was correct, but he certainly didn't understand that none of these actions were being taken for his sake.  He didn't know that Flowers had been led to Ecklie after much of the conspiracy had already been formed.

Ecklie, in short, didn't know that there was someone above him.

Ecklie was pathetically tortured and pathetically unable to do anything about it.  Lacking control over Flowers, he had divulged a few minor secrets to a nameless other.  Flowers didn't know who and didn't care.  Ecklie knew little enough about the true workings of the conspiracy - - whatever he did wasn't damaging.  Let the man playact his little games with his misguided intentions; it would do him no good and do Flowers no harm.

Flowers, Zimmer, Claberson, Ecklie, and Ecklie's assistant.  And, of course, the other.

Flowers called him the financier, when Flowers called him anything at all.  They met regularly, and Flowers was never given any name.  The financier had enough money to pay for anything he liked, and a taste for sadism that matched Flowers's own.

If he had been prone to having friends that he did not kill, he would have called the financier his friend.

"You rang?" Flowers asked, smiling.  He had a disarming smile, an All-American smile.  Nick Stokes would have recognized a little bit of himself in it and returned it without the slightest idea of the wolf beneath.

"Yes," the financier said.  "Sit down.  I'd order drinks, but you don't care for it, do you?"

"I have expensive tastes," Flowers said, "but alcohol isn't one of them.  Addictions are more weakening than I'd like."

"I heard you spent some time with Ecklie."

"You hear a lot.  Almost as much as I do."

"I have a lot of ears around this city," the financier said.  "For example, I know that Zimmer is losing control.  She's met twice now with Sara Sidle, and the second incident - - regrettably - - was her idea.  She's slipping."

"Unfortunate.  I was almost positive that she was amoral."

"I don't think it's a crisis of conscience," the financier said, rubbing his chin.  "I think she's becoming over-confident.  She believes that she is far more important to us than she really is, but, in reality, she's only really important to us in one aspect."

"Her death."

"Exactly.  If you don't mind, I'd like you to work on that."

"With pleasure, as always.  Can I kill Claberson?"

The financier frowned.  "If you do it quietly.  Claberson isn't part of the plan anymore.  Kill him if you like, but don't make it messy."

Flowers grinned.  "You're very interesting to work for.  I take it that Zimmer is just step one, right?  There'll be more?"

"I know you want your pick of Grissom's flock," the financier said, uninterested, and waved his hand to the waiter to signal for the check.  "And I have an idea as to where that can fit in.  And your conceptions of the deaths are inspiring, to say the least."

"You're not telling me something," Flowers said.

"I'm not telling you a lot of things, but this is one I'm going to add.  Kill who you like of Grissom's team - - more than one, if you want - - but there's only one rule."  The financier leaned forward and whispered it into Flowers's ear, and Flowers smiled.  Nodded.

"I think I understand."

"And you'll comply?"

"Without hesitation.  It isn't a difficult thing to avoid."

"And Zimmer?"

"I think I'll kill her tonight, just a few hours after Brown and Willows do their little interview for the press like good children."  Flowers laughed suddenly, imagining the breaking news splitting into their assurances that Gil Grissom was a good (and innocent) man.  "I have so many ideas."

"Good," the financier said.  "We'll need them all."


	14. The Last Supper

Part Two: Pocket Full of Posy

_When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve.  And while they were eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me."_

_They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, "Surely not I, Lord?"_

- - Matthew 26:20 – 22__

- -

Chapter Fourteen: The Last Supper (GREG)

- -

It had been eight at night when he'd stormed into Grissom's office and said, "You know what I haven't had in a really long time?  Pancakes."

Somehow, ten minutes later, Greg, Grissom, and Sara ended up in a small, sixties-themed diner, eating stacks of hotcakes that oozed butter and syrup.  Greg and Grissom had sides of bacon, and Sara had scrambled eggs and watched in amusement as Grissom gave Greg all his softer pieces of bacon without asking and Greg shuffled his burnt ones over to Grissom's plate.

"This," Sara said, pointing her fork at him, "is the best idea you've had in a long time."

"This," Greg said extravagantly, "is the best idea I've ever had, period.  No wound cannot be healed by a lot of pancakes in a cheesy diner."

He was being extravagant on purpose, because extravagance was expected and necessary.  It was soothing the extra worry out of Sara's face and calming Grissom, who had been a little wary when Greg had entered his office.  And it wasn't all a lie - - he really _was_ happy to be there, eating pancakes with Grissom and Sara and waiting for the other shoe to fall.  It was the waiting that was killing him, and the extravagance was a cover for that fear.

It was easy to sit there and pretend nothing was wrong.  It was easy to watch Grissom pour Sara's syrup and move his hand just a little too close to her.  It was _simple_.  Watching the two of them dance in and out of their bizarre, never-ending courtship was something he understood, and was used to.

Devil he knew; devil he didn't.

He took another huge bite of pancake as an excuse not to talk, and by the time he could get it down his throat (much to Grissom's look of amused disgust), he had thought of something to say.  "Hey, tempt us with some trivia, Grissom."

"Why?"

"Because I'm paying for dinner," Greg said.  "And Sara, of course, would never have to pay her own way - - not with me, any way - - but you're going to have to sink or swim.  Come on.  Pay up.  Tell me about bugs and stuff."

He loved pleasing Grissom, and he loved pissing Grissom off.  It was a twofold game.  Teasing his boss as inconspicuously about Sara as possible was incredibly entertaining.

"Bugs and stuff?"

"Bugs and blood," Greg said with a smile.  "Enlighten me, Mr. Crime Scene Investigator."

"Greg, are you or are you not taking field training in addition to your lab duties?  Because I seem to remember authorizing you to attend quite a few courses.  I was under the impression that you'd be an avid enough learner to have already picked up quite a few facts about 'bugs and blood.'"

_That was the most backwards compliment ever.  In fact, I'm not even sure if it was a compliment.  I'll probably stay up late tonight wondering what exactly he meant by that._

He lapsed into a puzzled but grateful silence.  It might or might not have been a sort of left-handed compliment, and it might not have answered his question, but he could see Sara smiling behind her hand, and Grissom's eyes were - - a rarity in any time and especially since the Zimmer crisis - - unexpectedly cheerful.  He had company.  At this point, he could _almost _consider Grissom a friend, and not just a boss.  Not just someone to be unquestioningly respected and adored, but someone almost human.

He didn't need to be alone-Greg.  He could drive away any of his darker thoughts and content himself to pancakes instead.

"You're smiling," Sara said.

"I like pancakes."  Greg took another bite to emphasize his point.  "And I'm feeling better right now than I have since - - you know, all this started."

"Hard to think that it's only been two days," Grissom agreed, sounding distracted.  He broke out of whatever reverie was drawing him and smiled at Greg.  "And I should apologize for what I said when you called.  I shouldn't have acted like that."

"Apology accepted," Greg said.  "I was jumping at shadows anyway."

He wasn't at all sure that he had been - - there was still something eerily _off _about Hodges and Ecklie - - but Grissom seemed reassured, and if Greg could grant some reassurance by pretending that his unease was nothing more than tilting at windmills, than all the better.

Sara looked at him, puzzled.  "What was it about?"

He was deprecating towards himself.  "I thought something was wrong with Hodges and Ecklie - - which, of course, makes sense, since there's _always_ something wrong with Hodges and Ecklie - - and I turned into a conspiracy theorist overnight.  Grissom's being polite.  I was really ridiculous - - _I _should be the one apologizing."

Really ridiculous.  If the jumping at shadows phrase had been reassuring, the really ridiculous phrase was downright disarming.

_Because_, said the soft, whispery voice of alone-Greg, _they _know _you're ridiculous.  They know that you're the one who should be apologizing, and they know that Grissom's just indulging you by pretending he did anything wrong._

_But there _was _something! _he thought desperately.  _I swear it wasn't just in my head!_

The smug silence that filled his head seemed to indicate that whatever other voices were residing in there, they were quite satisfied with their former point.

_Oh, shut up_, Greg thought crossly.  _Besides, I'm not schizophrenic, anyway_.

He smiled, and said aloud, "Grissom, can I ask you something?"

Grissom raised his eyebrows.  "If you can say it in public."

"Why on _earth _are you drinking that?"

"It's just grape juice," Grissom said defensively.  "It's good."

"One may or may enjoy grape juice," Greg said, the flush in his face heightening (_ridiculous so ridiculous)_, "but one most certainly is not to enjoy grape juice with pancakes, as the only _appropriate _beverage to drink with pancakes is milk, or perhaps coffee."

"You teach proper eating etiquette now?"

"I do.  And I reiterate my point - - I am insulted to be paying for you to drink grape juice."  He signaled for their waitress and ordered a coffee for Grissom and neatly liberated his boss of the glass of grape juice.

Grissom looked amused.  "Go ahead, have some, if you're so tempted."

"I am _not _tempted."

"I am," Sara said, stealing the glass and sipping at some.  She made a face.  "Tastes kind of sour, actually.  Try it."

Greg sipped delicately, like he was at a wine-tasting party.  "A very poor vintage."

The waitress brought the cup of coffee and looked at them as if they might, very well, be the strangest people she had ever seen - - taking their personal communion with pancakes and grape juice so late in the night.  Greg thanked her, reminded himself to leave a good tip to repay her for dealing with all of the weird, and handed the coffee to Grissom with a very satisfied look on his face.

"There," he said.  "Problem solved."

Only he wasn't sure if he had solved a single thing.  Drinking problems aside.  He felt suddenly dizzy - - the relief and happiness that had filled him just minutes before had all but evaporated, leaving him in actor in his own skin, struggling frantically to play the part of himself as best as he could.  They had done something - - said something - - something that should have rung a bell with him, but didn't.  It wasn't connecting.

He kept seeing that eight ball he hit roll into the pocket.

In the pocket of his own jacket, his hand curled around the lucky rabbit's foot and he concentrated on breathing as smoothly and neatly as possible.  Keep the inhalation/exhalation process quiet, too - - didn't want them to notice that he was drowning.

He watched them.  They were sitting too close for coworkers, and too far away for assured lovers.  Sara was looking up at Grissom with a smile - - lovely, so beautiful - - and Grissom was smiling back at her.

_They don't feel anything.  Why do I have to be so damn nervous?  There's nothing wrong.  We're just having dinner, for God's sakes.  There's nothing out of the ordinary, except that Grissom takes grape juice with his pancakes.  Which, as I said, he shouldn't._

He filled in conversation at all the right moments with all the right touches.  By now, this was automatic.  He split off into two paths of thinking, one part of him answering the questions thrown at him by rote, and the other meandering, wondering, and losing itself in the distance.

His fingers tightened on the rabbit's foot.

Warrick had said that they were going to do a press interview for the nine o'clock news - - it was probably happening right now.  Greg wished he could be watching, and suddenly, cruelly, thought that the pancake-idea wasn't his best idea at all, but really, one of his worst.  Something that he should have avoided.  He should be sitting in the lab on pins and needles, doing his experiments and nibbling his nails as he watched Catherine and Warrick on the fuzzy break room television set.  It would be painful and unsettling, but it wouldn't have had that desperate flavor of hidden danger, as if there were something he was not quite understanding or reaching, despite his efforts.

Some cloud, some future.

"Grissom," he said, surprising himself with both the question and its awkward _neediness_, "can I take off early tonight?  I mean, I know, I shouldn't, it's hectic, and I don't want to leave you guys hanging, but - - "

"You're not feeling well," Grissom said, evaluating him.  "You don't look entirely well, either.  You're a little pale.  Go home and get some sleep."  He smiled, undoubtedly intending to comfort.  "This isn't really your problem anyway.  I'll see you tomorrow - - and thanks for dinner, by the way."

_This isn't really my problem_, Greg told himself as he thanked Grissom and stood.  _Remember that.  This weird sense of foreboding isn't my problem, and this rape charge isn't my problem, and Hodges and Ecklie aren't my problem.  They're his.  They're all his.  Take the weight of the world off me, Griss - - I'm kinda tired of it._

At the exit, he glanced back and saw Grissom and Sara continuing to talk.  Sara was lightly flushed, her head bowed as she talked to Grissom, and Grissom was smiling at her with uncommon gentleness.

_Probably just now realizing how close he's come to losing everything_, Greg thought.  _Good.  Maybe that'll do him some good._

He put his hand on the doorknob.

_It's not my problem._

He looked back again and saw them, still there, still talking with that quiet earnestness that seemed so vital - - Sara so lovely and Grissom so attentive - -

_But I do worry_, he thought.  _No matter what, I _do _worry about them, my problem or not.  Oh God, I do worry._


	15. Flowers, for a Lady

Sorry about the slightly longer delay this time - - this chapter had trouble coming together.  Flowers is a sick, sick bastard.  Next chapter belongs to Grissom, and the one after that is all Sara - - oh, and GSR 'shippers, get ready for . . . well, something.  Just remember the author's note at the beginning of the story.

- -

Chapter Fifteen: Flowers, for a Lady (OTHER)

- -

Flowers was wearing gloves.  He didn't usually wear gloves, because, like the rest of him, his fingerprints were untraceable.  They connected only to themselves.  He had never been fingerprinted, never had a DNA sample collected, and had not, since he was seventeen, had any piece of identification with his real name on it, not even something so simple as a library card.  He could have managed with it, but Flowers was cautious when caution appeared to be beneficial.  And so, he sometimes wore gloves, and he never signed his real name.

He wore gloves as he traced his finger down the curve of Lizzie Zimmer's chin.

She was terrified, her muscles tight and coiled underneath her skin, and she shuddered at his touch.  He smiled, and moved the gun closer to the hollow of her throat.  It slid over the beads of perspiration gathering there.  Lizzie looked upwards, towards the ceiling, and moaned through the gag.

"Sweetheart," Flowers said, "I really, really hope that you aren't praying right now.  You joined a conspiracy to frame an innocent man for rape.  That's not the kind of thing that anyone forgives easily - - I don't think God will be any different."

He stroked Lizzie's cheek again.  She screamed, and the sound, muffled against the cotton, was like the wounded cry of a bird.

"Of course," Flowers continued, "it's really framing him for _murder_, isn't it?  You never understood that, because we didn't tell you."

He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.  It was a chaste kiss, almost a brother's kiss.  She tossed her head to the side in a vain attempt to bite him.

"That's not nice."  He stood, and tucked the gun into his pants.  "Now, how would Grissom kill you?  What would _he _consider to be the perfect murder?"  He chewed his thumbnail, apparently so deep in thought that not even Lizzie, straining against her ties and still screaming into the gag, could disturb him.  "See, I never really met him, and I'm not sure what he would do.

"The financier's met him.  Ecklie.  You.  That bastard Claberson.  Me?  I'm the only one in the dark on dear Dr. Grissom, the person we're trying to destroy."

Lizzie's struggles were ceasing.  Maybe, in the last few hours of her life, she was developing some practicality.  She couldn't beat him like this.  Conserving strength, maybe.  He evaluated her like he would evaluate a game board before he made a move.  He looked at her disheveled blonde hair and the bruises around her wrists, ankles, and mouth.  Her cheap white shorts and faded blue tank-top.  Weekend clothes.  She was shivering, her dark eyes closed.

He was distantly impressed.  She looked like a bird, torn from the sky and suddenly made flightless.  She rebelled against her broken wings, but knew she could no longer soar.

"You really _are _beautiful," he said thoughtfully.  "Of course, I always thought that.  Since the very first time I met you.  So pretty, so delicate.  Like one of those old-fashioned Dresden dolls, made from china.  You always looked so breakable, even before I broke you."

He smiled at her confusion, but did not explain.  Flowers never felt the need to explain absolutely everything, not even to himself.

"The women here are different.  Sara Sidle - - vivacious, but quiet. Dedicated, but lost.  From what I hear, she's in love with Grissom, and he turned her down.  That's a sorry way to be, and I'm sure you can identify with her - - or you would, if you weren't such a bitch - - but she hasn't let it get her down.  Not too much, anyway."  He pulled a photograph of Sara out of his wallet and smiled affectionately at it.  "She's a tragic personage.  Can't wait to, you know.  Meet her.  Seduce her.  Kill her.  Whatever happens.

"And Catherine Willows.  Hard as diamonds; sharp as razorblades.  And she has such lovely eyes, doesn't she?  She's strong.

"And you're not.  You're weak.  You're breakable."

Flowers grinned.  It was a smile of pure delight.  There was no visible evil hiding inside of it, it was just a thrilled expression.  It might have fitted just as well on the face of a little boy, just given a brand new set of trains and a whole day to play with them.  Only Flowers's train sets, of course, were only designed to crash.  He lived to see them burn.

"Don't worry, Elizabeth," he said.  "I'll break them all in the end.  Sidle, Stokes, Brown - - well, you know the list."

He snapped his fingers.

"You know what, Lizzie, dear?"  That smile again.  "I think I've got an idea."

Before he began, he took the white rose out of his suitcase and laid it carefully on the bedside table.  He made sure to avoid getting any blood on it.  The roses were supposed to stay white through the whole thing.

He whistled while he worked.


	16. Still Life

Glad to see that everyone thinks Flowers is evil, and yes, somewhat charming.  Flowers gets to make the commentary on the story, pretty much - - he hangs out in the background and says what everyone else is just thinking . . .

Grissom chapter!

- -

Chapter Sixteen: Still Life (GRISSOM)

- -

The call came at twelve minutes to midnight.

He rose to answer it, half-hoping that it would be Nick's report from Boston, or maybe, just for an interesting riff, another one of Greg's conspiracy theories, surfacing from nowhere.  But it was more likely another sympathy call, and Grissom answered with an unswerving sense of caution, tucking the phone between his chin and his ear.

"Grissom," he said.

The voice was soft and masculine; a whisper.  "She's dead."

In the space of half a second, so was the line.  It dropped away into silence, without even the hushed sound of breath.  It was untraceable - - the call itself had probably taken no more than two seconds in its entirety.  And though Grissom knew the voice was gone, knew the caller had disconnected, he found himself saying, "Who?  Who's dead?"

He dropped the phone back to the receiver and stood in the dark.  He _knew _this.  He knew what it meant.  He could run through a list of female friends, family members, and acquaintances and still only come up with one answer, damning in its certainty:

Lizzie Zimmer.

He could think about Sara, and could imagine Sara dead, although the thought revolted him, but he knew, somehow, that she wasn't.  And Catherine - - it wasn't Catherine, either.  Not his mother.  He didn't know anyone likely to grieve so desperately that they would call like that and be unable to say anything more.  Even mourning, Nick, Warrick, and Greg would be analytical enough.  They were born that way; trained that way.

It wasn't a consolation.  It was a warning.

_She's dead.  They'll be coming for me soon, because who more likely to kill Lizzie Zimmer than the  man she was accusing of rape?  Then the man whose career could be ruined by such an accusation?  What other suspects could they possibly have?_

He was being ridiculous.  He was jumping at shadows.  He'd let Greg's conspiracy theories eat away into his head - -

But, then again, wasn't there even something just a little bit true in Greg's paranoia?  And hadn't he worried just a little himself when he saw how pale the young man was at dinner, after the rounding warmth of the moment wore off?  He was glad to be able to send Greg home - - when Greg had suddenly looked so wan, so young, so

_(fragile)_

ill.  He'd looked ill.  And there had been a grain of truth in his suspicions, probably.  Ecklie was likely enjoying Grissom's downfall, and Greg picked up on it, because Greg was remarkably perceptive.

But grain of truth or not, paranoia was infectious, and surely, _surely _it was only rubbing off on him.  Maybe the caller hadn't even said that someone was dead.  Maybe there had just been a breath into the silence, or some kind of phonetic coincidence.

_And you can tell yourself that, but you know what you heard.  And you know who is dead._

He sat down, hard.  He felt for the porcelain of the lamp and moved his hand under the globe to turn the switch, and the room sputtered into a bright, yellowy light.  He could see his hands shaking on his knees, doing bizarre tap-dances, with the fingers rising and pushing against his slacks and collapsing down, weak-muscled, as if slain.  He stilled them into fists and tried to steady the rest of himself that way, one muscle at a time.  A series of relaxations, all falling into place like dominos.

Except none of it was working.  He had gotten his hands to stop moving, and now they lay like clumps of wood at the ends of his wrists, but the rest of him was jittery.  Not physically, but his mind was shaking worse than his hands had been - - jumping from one conclusion to another like they were stones in the middle of some vast, confusing stream, and bouncing back from Boston to Vegas, from Lizzie to Sara, from the teaching assistant to Nick.  From the pancakes to the Last Supper.  From Greg to - -

No, he wouldn't think that.  That was one allegory he wasn't going to accept.  He was going to deny that the bet he could, and claim to his dying day that he had never, ever, _ever _connected Greg Sanders to Judas, not even in his thoughts.

"Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, 'Surely not I, Rabbi?'" Grissom said under his breath, almost in a whisper, and then shook his head to clear it.  "Except Greg's not Judas, and I'm not _Jesus_, dammit."

In that light, it seemed vain of him to think like that.  Almost blasphemous, sure, because by comparing Greg to Judas he compared himself to Jesus, and that was one comparison that Grissom, even in his state of _lapsed_ Catholicism, was unwilling to make.

And Lizzie Zimmer was dead.  Pretty Lizzie Zimmer, with her skin like china and her widened eyes.  After Greg left the diner, Sara had said that she thought Lizzie _had _been raped, _had _been bruised, _had _been broken.  Had been soured against men and the concept of sex, and Grissom would be (_would have been_) another conquest.  Another man who could never hurt her, because she had Taken Care of Him.

_But someone hurt her now.  Someone hurt her tonight, and I swear it wasn't me.  I swear I haven't left this house all night._

And it simply wasn't that credible an alibi.  He wasn't even sure that _he _believed his own story.  It would be so easy, after all, to slip into Vegas, where night was superficial because of all the neon and information came so cheaply.  It would have been easy to find Lizzie's hotel and stand at the door and knock.  So easy to be let in.  So easy to do what he'd been accused of, and why should anyone believe him?  What credibility did he have?

_Do you believe them?  - - No.  Never._

_You don't have to be here just because of her.  No one cares what she's saying, you know.  It doesn't make a difference.  Everyone knows that there's no way you did something like that._

_Not that I ever thought you did it._

Sara, Greg, and Nick.  A triplicate alliance who believed that he was trustworthy.  But Warrick was silent, and hadn't he seen just a little bit of doubt in Catherine's eyes?  Doubt that she hadn't wanted to show?  Just a hint; a glimmer of some _suspicion_.

_Because what do they really know about me?  What do I really tell them?  Catherine knows me better than anyone, and she was the one who suspected.  And then I have Sara and Nick believing that I would never do something like that, and Greg, who knows next to _nothing _about what I think or what I believe, is so damned convinced that I'm innocent that it hurts.  But not Catherine.  Not Warrick.  Not my best friend and my favorite CSI.  Not the ones I've let inside the most.  No, they know better than to trust me completely._

On his side were the three people had had neglected the most.  The three people he had thrown to the side.  Sara, standing in his doorway, asking him to dinner only to have him turn her down - - but Sara still trusted him.  Nick, who always looked like he _knew _when Grissom was thinking that he wasn't good enough - - Nick believed him.  And Greg - - how many times had he scolded Greg for something small, like music, or elaborate results?  _But they believed him.  They were loyal to him._

And then Catherine and Warrick - -

He had taken Catherine's side so many times.  Saved her job.  Pulled her neck out of the ring.  Compromised investigations and not mentioned things in his files because he didn't want to hurt her.  All the things he hadn't done for the others, and Catherine looked at him with the darkest suspicions, not believing all the way to the bottom that he was innocent.

Warrick.  He'd let Warrick keep his job when he would have fired anyone else, trusted Warrick to lead when protocol requested him to leave someone else in charge, and always believed that Warrick would stay cool in the face of the odds.  He had chosen Warrick as his _successor_, dammit, and Warrick had said nothing to him.  Warrick went on the news and diffused matters, but he and Warrick hadn't even spoken since Lizzie Zimmer's accusation.

Everyone who had been given reason to doubt him believed him, and everyone who had been rewarded turned against him.

Oh, not noticeably.  Not in ways that anyone else would see, but _subtly_.

"And now she's dead," Grissom said.  "What are they going to think now?"

He didn't want it, didn't need it.  Didn't care to see Sara back away from him, Nick's faith crumble, and Greg's trust vanish.  He didn't want to see their faces when they found the body.  The looks in their eyes.  The doubt.  The condemnation.

_This is it, this is the end.  I could have maybe lived with the rape charge hanging over my head, but not this.  Even if I'm not arrested, I'll be quietly asked to leave.  The crime lab doesn't need someone accused of killing the girl he also maybe raped.  It's too much of a scandal.  It's too much.  They'll ask me to leave, and I will._

But for now, he had nothing left to lose.  Lizzie had taken everything from him.

His job had been his life, and someone had stolen it away in the space of two days.  With almost comical ease, everything he'd worked for was gone.  Was ended.  _Two days_.  At the beginning of the week, he'd had nothing to dread.  He'd had no premonitions, no slipping loyalties, no doubts.

He'd been a little lonely, but he'd been _him_.  He'd been sure of where he stood.

Now he was sure of nothing.  The fulcrum of his life had moved.  Hell, it had been _re_moved.  There was nothing left to hold onto, and - -

A thunking noise - - fist against wood.  A knock.

_Who? _he thought, almost by instinct.  _Who's dead?_

He stood and clicked the lights on so no one would see him standing alone in the dark.  He drew the shades back before turning the lock and opening the door.

The lamp over his door cast a wavering, shuttering white light over Sara.  Her lips were parted in an awkward smile, and her teeth gleamed.  She said nothing, and didn't really move to come in, though he stood far apart from the door, holding it open.

_My God_, Grissom thought in faint devotion,_ she's utterly beautiful_.

It wasn't just the wine-colored slacks and the cream blouse that looked as if it would be heavenly soft to the touch, it was her smile, the dark vibrancy in her eyes, and even in her color: the warm flush high on her cheekbones.  Sara was more than beautiful, Sara was _alive_.  Sara was Life.

_But not my life,_ he thought.  _I made sure of that.  I did everything I could to turn her away, and, again, here she is.  She's standing on my porch, smiling at me.  I made work my life instead of her, and now I have nothing left._

What had he done to deserve this?  To deserve her?

He opened the door even wider, and stepped into the shadows, so Sara alone was in the light.

_I have nothing else left._

His voice didn't even tremble as he said, "Why don't you come inside?"


	17. Surely Not I

- -

Chapter Seventeen: Surely Not I (SARA)

- -

"Why don't you come inside?" he said, holding the door open for her.

It was cool in his townhouse.  The air swept over her in cyclical motions.  She stood in the entrance until he moved into the living room, and then she followed in his wake.  He was silent again, and she had yet to speak.  The quiet was muffling the other sounds she knew should be there, making it impossible for her to hear her own breathing or footsteps.

He sat down on the tasteful beige sofa, and she followed suit.

She knew why she was there.  She knew he was upset.  She'd been able to see through the pleasantness at dinner down to the bone, and she knew that Grissom was frightened of what was happening.  For a man so obsessed with control over his own life, it must have been horrifying to watch it slip away from him with Lizzie's accusation.  But Warrick and Catherine had done an excellent job of directing the press's attention elsewhere, and with a settlement in the works, Grissom would have his normal, regulated life back soon.

And she had come to tell him that, except she suddenly found it impossible.

He looked heartbroken but determined.  He looked irrevocably _lost_, as if he wasn't sure where he was, and comforting him with settlements seemed bizarre.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm fine," he said.  "Fine."  He ran one hand over his face, skirting his hairline, and she watched his fingertips swirl over his skin with a voyeuristic pleasure.  "Just - - upset about all of this."

"I get that.  It's been bothering me, too."

She wondered if he would tell her, as he had told Greg, that it wasn't really her problem.  She wondered if Grissom would try to placate her, or exclude her.  If he did, she'd know that what she was thinking at the moment was impossible.  If Grissom said the wrong thing now, she'd know that her chance was what it always had been before: nonexistent.

But he didn't comfort her, and he didn't exclude her.  He was quiet, and then shattered the silence with, "I've been thinking about my life."

It was the first time she'd ever heard him say something about his personal life, and, riveted, she leaned forward, her eyes never breaking contact with his own.  She could feel her hands slipping over her knees, and she fought to keep her balance on the sofa.  He still looked distant, but then when his eyes refocused, there was an intensity in them that glimmered underneath the surface, like gold thrown into water.

"About your life," she said, as a prompt.

"I made this my life," he said, with a sweeping gesture, and she _knew _that he wasn't talking about the townhouse.  He gave her a sheepish grin, like he'd read her mind.  "Work.  I did overtime, I did double-shifts, triple-shifts . . . I let it consume me.  And I never regretted it until now.  It's fascinating.  Catherine calls it a puzzle, like it's something to be solved and then set aside, but it's more than that.  It's not just a challenge, it's a life.  It's what I was made to do.  And if I ever wanted anything more than that . . . I could be content anyway."

He cleared his throat.

"And I'm going to - - I'm _afraid _I'm going to - - lose it all.  This life.  And it seems so strange that all I have left is what I turned away from."

_He's talking about me.  Turning me down, turning me away.  He regrets it._

"What do you have left?"

He laughed.  It sounded bitter, almost deprecating.  "I have Nick.  He's sitting in a hotel in Boston because I sent him away when I probably needed him the most.  I have Greg.  He's so worried about bogeymen in the background of our lives and the proper pancake-eating etiquette that he's bordering on insanity.  I have butterflies pinned on my wall, I have migraine medication, and I have six years of poker-playing experience locked in my brain."

He looked at her, his eyes heated; evaluating.

"I don't know what else I have," he said plainly.  "I don't know what I may have lost.  Can you tell me what else I have, Sara?"

She had never liked someone saying her name that much before.  She loved the way it rolled off his tongue and slid between his lips, always sounding seductive even when they were discussing something plain or even revolting, like maggots or grout.  And of course, he had not lost her.  It would be impossible for him to lose her.

"You have me," she said.  "You've always had me."

"People who saw us together, even at Harvard - - they could tell," Grissom said, his voice softly contemplative.  "They could see the way my eyes never wandered too far away from you.  The way we walked too close together.  People talked about us, and they knew.  And I knew.  But I didn't think this could be part of my life.  And now I'm losing my life."

_It sounds like he's saying he's dying, _Sara thought.  _Maybe to him, he is_.

But her concern for him was washed away in this revelation - - that he loved her, or wanted her, at the very least.  She meant something to him.  He had her, yes, but she had him too.

"You won't lose me," she promised, and he touched her hand, just above the wrist.  His fingers were scorching against her bare skin.  Her lips parted, she let out a surprised, harsh breath.  "You - - you could never lose me.  No matter how hard you tried."

"I tried," he said, curving his hand around hers in an elaborate, almost erotic dance of fingers and skin, "but I couldn't.  I couldn't forget this.  I couldn't exclude you from my life, and I can't want that anymore.  I have to have a life, Sara.  And I want you to be it."

Not part of it, not in it, but _it_.  He wanted her to be his life in its entirety.

It gave her shivers; thrills.  She whispered his name as he raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her.  And his eyes were darkened to a cloudy blue with emotion and desire, but there was something wrong there, too.  Something that wasn't as sweet.  There was something secretive there - - something hidden.  Something he wasn't telling her.

He was a mystery.  He was hiding something from her.

And for once, she didn't care.  She couldn't care.  He was tracing her lifeline with his lips, and if this was all she could get, if this was going to be just a one-night stand, if he was lying just to let this happen - - she didn't care.  She was sick of caring, sick of wanting anything more.  So she would give in, if that was what it took.  She would let go.

He kissed the corner of her mouth as his thumb grazed over her lower lip.

"Sara," he said, "do you love me?"

She hated him for asking, but that didn't change the answer.

"Of course I do," she said, leaning into his kiss.  His hands traveled down her back, over her shoulder-blades, sliding in a ladder pattern down her spine.  He began to raise her shirt up over her ribs, and she watched it rise when her head ducked down.  She didn't ask him his own question.

Her shirt dropped to the sofa cushions, leaving her sitting there in a lavender silk bra and a pair of soft, wine-colored slacks.  Her lips were parted, and she whispered to him, unsure of what she was saying, but he must have understood, because he nodded.

"God, you're beautiful," he said, his voice husky.  "Why did I never do this before?"

The knock at the door made them jerk back, her almost falling into him.  Her skin jumped under his touch as he wrapped his arms around her belly, her shoulders.

"Don't answer," she whispered.

"I have to," he said, and the grim determination in his face repelled her for some reason she couldn't explain.  "I know what they want."

He stood and walked to the door too quickly for her to get her shirt back on, and she just draped it over her shoulders, feeling foolish and naked as Grissom swung open the door to reveal Brass and two cops in their full uniforms.  Brass looked at him and sighed.

"Gil, we're going to need to take you in for questioning in the murder of Elizabeth Zimmer."

Sara stood, and the shirt dropped to the ground, a puddle on the carpet, a stain.  Brass looked at her with indescribable sadness in his eyes, and then down at the ground.  Grissom stood firm, unmoving.

"Gil," Brass said again, "she was _eviscerated_.  She's dead.  You have to come in to the station.  Not an arrest, just some questions."

He shouldn't have been standing there so quietly.  He should have ranted; raved; gasped.  He should have said something, _anything_, but he didn't.  He just stood there, bleak and still, and that was when Sara understood: he had known.  While he was pulling her shirt off and kissing her, he had known that Lizzie Zimmer was dead.  That she was dead.  That it would end.

He had _known_.

She said, "Did you kill her?"

It was almost as soft as a breath, and she wasn't even sure if he heard her until he flinched.  And she instantly regretted it, standing there in her bra, asking the man she loved if he had killed another woman, but she couldn't help it.  She had asked - - because she had believed that he was capable of having done it.  Grissom, with his cold hands and colder eyes.  With his touches and avoidances.  With his secrets.

She had believed only for a second, but she had still believed.

_I didn't say it, he didn't hear me, I didn't say it, I didn't.  Of course I didn't.  I wouldn't betray him like that, not in front of these people, not like this._

But she had.  She had.

And they were taking him away.  Tugging at his arms, pulling on his hands, and dragging him outwards into the night, they were taking him away.  And he was no longer resisting, just letting himself be taken while she stood there, half-naked, in his townhouse, with blood smeared over the palms of her hands.


	18. Words Fall

Congratulations to everyone who caught the Biblical references.  Yeah, a lot of that will show up in this story - - I first came up with the plot after watching _Passion of the Christ_ - - so, yeah.

And I'm a little worried about this new strict enforcement of the ratings policy - - I've rated this as PG-13, but do you think I should up the rating to R?  It's gotten about as graphic as far as violence/sexuality goes as it's going to get, but do you think I should change it just to be safe?  What are your thoughts?

Okay - - Catherine's up, and then we get Warrick, then Nick.  And I had fun with this chapter, so I hope that you enjoy it.

- -

Chapter Eighteen: Words Fall (CATHERINE)

- -

She turned, knelt, and photographed the white rose.

She hadn't seen the body.  The body was gone long before she got there.  Warrick had the pictures, and Catherine didn't have to ask how Lizzie's corpse had looked.

She didn't remember Warrick ever having to throw up at a crime scene before.

It looked like a standard rape/murder scene, and she tried not to think about when this all became her standard.  The room was trashed, the drawers turned inside-out, the sheets bloodstained.  She'd lifted filaments of strapping tape off the bedroom's single chair.  Warrick joined her as she lifted the white rose off the bedspread and dropped it into a plastic bag.

"I was wondering about that," he said.  The line of his mouth was straight and set.  "Why leave a flower?"

She handed him the baggie.  "Not sure.  Maybe the killer was a boyfriend."  They hadn't said Grissom's name yet, even to mention in conjunction with a list of suspects, and she didn't want to bring it up.  The white rose's presence gave her some hope.

"White roses," Warrick said, examining it through the clear shield of plastic.  "Symbolic, maybe.  They use white roses at some funerals.  And then - -"  He laughed, almost self-consciously.  "There's Matthew Flowers, the rose killer."

She shook her head.  "Flowers is a tabloid phenomena.  He must have spawned a dozen copycat crimes.  I'm willing to bet that he doesn't even exist."

"It isn't his usual locale, true," Warrick said, "but he's not supposed to have one.  Every profile on the guy says that he moves.  Less likely to get caught.  And when you don't have any signature other than a rose - - it's pretty easy to not be profiled."

"He's a myth," Catherine said.  "And if we go to Covallo or the DA and start talking about Matthew _Flowers _killing Zimmer - - we'll be laughed out."

"I just hope we can get something off it."  Warrick slid it into his kit, and turned to the rest of the room.  "This place is a mess.  You want to call it?"

"I'll give it a shot."  She walked him to the front door.  "Killer came to the door, knocked.  Zimmer must have recognized him, because you don't let strangers into your hotel room."

"Not in Vegas."

"So she let him inside - - presumably without too much fuss, or the people in the surrounding rooms would have heard something and called the management."

The opening lounge had a distinct lack of disarray, so she let Warrick trail behind her into the bedroom suite, where the carnage began.

"She took him into the bedroom, or he took her into the bedroom."

"Did Zimmer have a boyfriend that we know about?  A husband?  A girlfriend?  Anybody?"

Catherine flipped through her file, the sheets of paper skimming between her fingers.  Photos, scans, recent addresses.  A copy of the accusation against Grissom, even.  Nothing about any romantic attachment in her life.  "Not that I can find.  So we'll assume that it's just a friend, or, at least, some kind of acquaintance."

"Okay.  Keep going."

"Either way, both of them got into the bedroom.  And he subdued her - - probably hit her over the head, I'm guessing, so he could tie her up and gag her before she screamed."  She examined the bloody sheets.  "I can't prove whether or not the hit was severe enough to kill her, but by the quantity of blood, and the strapping tape, I'm guessing that it was just a precaution."

"Good guess," Warrick said, folding and bagging the sheets as he listened.

"Zimmer wakes up, panics."

"I think that's a good guess, too."

She closed her eyes and tried to identify with Lizzie.  Trapped within her own skin and her own hotel room, reliving _something_, if Sara was right about Lizzie being attacked before, terrified and maybe feeling warm blood work down her cheek from her temple.  Or down her collarbone, from the base of her skull.  The body - - Lizzie - - had been naked, shown signs of abuse.

"He rapes her," she said, eyes still closed.  "Probably while she's still in the chair, but we found her on the bed, so - - he moves her.  Maybe knocks her out again, or maybe she's just weak enough by then for Gil to carry her.  He ties her to the bed, and, according to the coroner reports - - slits her throat.  And that's where we get the blood spray on the sheets.  So, the question is, why did he move her?"

"From chair to bed?"  Warrick was looking at her with an odd, unidentifiable expression in his eyes.  "Not sure.  There's got to be a reason."

Catherine tried again to picture Lizzie, this time in the bed instead of the chair.  Frightened, dazed, bloody. . .

"Can you tell me what the body looked like?"

Warrick coughed a little into his hand.  "Bad shape.  She was - - tangled in the sheets, and the blood was everywhere.  Naked.  Eyes closed."

"Where was the rose?"

"Between her legs.  Upper thighs, with the blossom inwards and the stem facing her feet."

She exhaled, bringing her hand to her face as if to shield her eyes from the realization.  "Deflowered," she said.  "According to Zimmer's accusation, she was a virgin when she was raped the first time.  The killer this time was the rapist from before - - the bloody sheets, the rose - - it's all an over-dramatization.  You know, a maiden ravished."

"Our killer's a drama queen," Warrick said, disgusted.  "Symbolic flair."

"I don't know what scares me more," Catherine admitted.  "That he did it, or that I figured it out."

"Hey," he said gently.  "It's your job.  I didn't even think of that.  Guess I didn't do enough theatre in high school.  Good going.  That'll give us something to add to the profile.  Every little bit helps.  I'll get Greggo started on the blood and epithelials from these sheets as soon as we hit the lab again.  Grissom - - I can't even think about what to say to him about this."

She tugged at her sleeve, moved her rings around her fingers.  Nervousness coming out in restless motions of her hands, and she thought she'd cured herself of that long ago.  Thought that she'd become the kind of woman who didn't need to be nervous, scared, or intentionally cruel, but she'd been all three in the last few days.  Maybe she wasn't who she thought she was.

"I don't know either," she said.

_"Everyone's been up to bat but you.  This hasn't rippled you yet.  You're still distant."_

"Warrick, about what I said earlier - - about you and Grissom - -"

"It's fine," he said.  "It was true, anyway."  But his voice was colder than it had been a moment ago, when he'd been reassuring her that she was only doing her job.

"It wasn't true," she insisted, though it had been, and they both knew it.  "It wasn't, and I'm sorry I said it.  I was just - - upset.  This has all been stressful enough, for everyone.  And I'm not even in the center on this - - I can't imagine how it feels to be Grissom right now."

"You - - you said his name."

"Grissom?  Yeah, I just mean, I can't think about what it would be like - - to be a suspect in all this.  He could lose his job if this goes much further, and - -"

"I don't mean just now," Warrick said.  He shifted his weight, foot to foot, and didn't look at her.  He stared at the carpeting instead.  It was floral-patterned.  She wondered if the false flowers were wilting from the heat of his gaze.  He looked uncomfortable when he looked up again.  "Earlier," he said.  "When you were reconstructing the crime, you said his name."

"Don't be ridiculous," she said, but a sudden cold fear rocketed through her.  She turned to examine some evidence, but she couldn't even see what she was examining through the gauzy veil of her fear.  _Had _she said his name?  _Had _she?"

"You were walking through the whole thing," Warrick continued, and she wanted to turn and slap him, make him stop, do absolutely _anything_ to just make Warrick Brown shut up and stop talking about a stupid slip of the tongue that she probably didn't even make and certainly hadn't meant, but her hands were trembling, and she was biting through her lip so hard that her mouth was wet with blood instead of cosmetics, and Warrick kept talking.

"You were talking about how he moved her to the bed, and whether or not he would have knocked her out again, and you said maybe she was weak enough for _Grissom _to just move her.  Well, Gil.  You said Gil.  Not 'the killer.'  Not perp, suspect, anything like that.  You said his name."

She leaned against the dresser, her hip bumping against one of the open drawers.

"I didn't mean to."

"Do you think he killed her, Catherine?  Because if you do, you should stop now.  I'll call Sara - - or get Nick to fly out of Boston - - and someone else can help me with his.  Greg, even.  But not you, not if you're already convinced that Grissom killed her."

"I thought about it," she said, trying to be calm.  She still wasn't looking at him.  "And I know you did, too.  Don't lie and say that you didn't."

"Sure I did," Warrick said, unmoved.  "He's the only suspect we can even figure in right now.  But I'm not the one who prejudged him in a _walkthrough_.  So I'm asking - - do you think that Gil Grissom walked into this hotel room, raped Lizzie Zimmer, slit her throat, and left a white rose on her bed?  Do you think that's what happened?"

"I don't think that," she said, and turned to see him.  "But I don't know what I think."

His eyes were unreadable as he touched her lip.  "You're bleeding, Cath.  Go out to the car.  There're some napkins in the glove compartment."  His fingers came away, the smooth latex now red with blood, and he peeled the gloves from his skin.  Couldn't let the samples get contaminated with _her _DNA.

"Warrick?"

He wasn't looking at her.  He was hunting through his kit for more gloves.  "Yeah?"

"What do you think about all this?"

He snapped the gloves out of the plastic and pulled them on.  The warm, comforting tone of his skin disappeared under the blank white latex.  For the first time, she hated them.  They were too sterile, too unworldly.  They made Warrick, who always looked like he understood her, untouchable.  They pulled him away, forced him to look distant.

"I'm going to wait and see what the evidence tells us," he said.

She hated him for that, too.  What a noncommittal answer.  He was dodging the question.  And even if it was professional, she still hated him for it.  He didn't have to be professional around her, he just had to answer her questions.  All she'd wanted from him was honesty, and all she was getting was his coldest reception.  She hadn't _condemned _Grissom.  She'd just slipped, that was all.

The words had just fallen out.  It wasn't important.

She went out to the car and held the napkins to her lips, and looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror.  A middle-aged woman with perfect makeup, and a bunch of Wendy's napkins held up to her bleeding mouth.  Pale eyes wide with fear.  She almost didn't recognize herself.

What on earth was she turning into?  Who _was _she anymore?

"I just want this all to go over," she said quietly into the silence of the car.  "I just want things to get back to normal.  But I can _handle_ this.  I _know _I can.  I don't have to let it get out of control."

When she took the napkin away, a drop of blood ran down her chin and splattered against her clean white shirt.

The woman in the mirror was crying.


	19. Wants and Needs

Glad to have the new readers!

Butterflied - - Yeah, there is something of a WCR relationship going on here, but it's not going to come up front.  It's more of Catherine wanting Warrick, and Warrick _knowing _that.  Also, they get subtext.  But it's not going to be written out like the GSR.

patch-puppy - - Well, Sara wasn't really bleeding, she just felt like she had Grissom's blood on her hands, but the blood comes up in both places because they feel like they've gone against Grissom, and feel guilty about it.

- -

Chapter Nineteen: Wants and Needs (WARRICK)

- -

"Grissom, talk to me."

"I don't really have anything to say, Warrick."

He'd do anything for a reaction.  _Anything_.  He was desperate to get something from Grissom, anything that actually had some emotion behind it and not just the blankest type of apathy.  He sat there, folded his hands, and stared at the man in front of him - - the man who had saved his job when it needed saving, the man who had given him second chances when he hadn't deserved them, and the man who was unraveling in a methodical fashion right now, falling to pieces one moment at a time.

He said, "I heard you slept with Sara."

He was hoping that it was the one thing to prompt something adamant from Grissom.  _Come on_, Warrick thought, _tell me it's none of my business.  Or tell me you didn't.  Or tell me you did.  Just say it with some damn feeling behind it - - any feeling at all._

"We didn't get that far," Grissom said.  His voice was still slack.  "We were interrupted."

"I also heard that you weren't too much surprised by a bunch of people bursting into your townhouse and telling you that Zimmer was dead."

"That's true."

"Gotta ask you why, Griss.  We need answers on this."

"I wasn't surprised to learn that she was dead because I killed her," Grissom said in a perfectly rote tone of voice.  "I killed her, and I raped her, if she was raped, and I robbed her, if she was robbed, and then I went back to my house to sleep with Sara just in time to find myself accused of murder."

"That a confession?"

"No," Grissom said.  "It's not."

"Good.  Because a false confession could be considered perjury, if you were ever up in court.  And Zimmer wasn't robbed, but she was raped."

"Of course she was," Grissom said.  "That's even more incriminating for me, isn't it?  And I'm going to take a stab at it and say that you probably didn't recover any trace of semen from Zimmer's body.  Nothing that could rule me out as a suspect."

"We recovered semen," Warrick said, and enjoyed the start he got out of Grissom.  "It's with Greg."

"Good.  He'll get whatever he can out of it, I'm sure.  In the meantime, am I under arrest?"

"We don't have any evidence to hold you, Grissom," he said, "and I know that you know that.  You've done this job long enough to know that.  And you've known us long enough to know that we wouldn't hold you even if we had enough evidence."

"That's a dangerous stance to take.  A person could lose his job."

Warrick looked at Grissom's pale, emotionless blue eyes.

"Is that all you're worried about, Griss?  That maybe you could get knocked down a peg over this?  This thing's escalated, it's not what it was.  We're in a worse-case scenario here."

"I know that, Warrick.  Like you said," and that time, there was a faint hint of bitterness in his voice, "I've worked this job a long time.  I know what constitutes hell on earth."

"Greg will prove that you're innocent."

"Greg won't find my semen in Lizzie Zimmer," Grissom said, on automatic function again.  "But you and I both know that that won't be enough to secure my innocence.  People still remember the Strip Strangler case.  You could get semen anywhere in Vegas."

Warrick snapped the case-file closed.  "Don't be pessimistic."

"Hell on earth," Grissom said.  "Worse-case scenario."

"I don't think that you killed Zimmer," Warrick said from between his teeth.  "Brass doesn't think that you killed Zimmer.  Greg doesn't think that you killed Zimmer.  I don't know if Nick's heard or not, but I'll give you a signed guarantee that even if he has, he wouldn't think that you killed her.  And _Sara_ doesn't think that you killed Zimmer, and I know that's what you care most about."

Grissom's face betrayed nothing.  "You didn't mention Catherine."

_"I thought about it.  And I know you did, too.  Don't lie and say that you didn't."_

"You're right," Warrick said.  "I didn't mention Catherine."

"So Catherine believes I'm capable of murder."

"Catherine's a little confused right now," and he was making excuses for her, like he often found himself doing, and hated it just enough to need to do it more, "and she doesn't really know what she believes.  This has been hard on her, too.  This thing has been hard enough on all of us."

"I told Greg that it wasn't his problem," Grissom said musingly.

Warrick didn't see how that was significant, but Grissom had sounded contemplative, at least, and contemplative was a step up from bland.  "Then you were wrong," he said.  "This is as much Greg's problem as it is yours.  No one can help it that you let us build our lives around you, and now we're all falling down."

"I wasn't aware of this importance."

"You should've been.  Sara's in love with you - - and yeah, don't give me that _look_, you know it and the entire lab knows it.  Catherine _was _in love with you, and if she's going to pick someone now," he added, thinking of the look in her eyes when she studied him, "it'll just be because she knows you're not in love with her.  You've got everyone desperate for your approval - - you really think that's a normal working situation?  Don't you think we've gone a bit beyond that now?  You know us too well.  You should've realized that we need you."

"That's a lot to put on a person, Warrick," Grissom said.  "Especially me."

"Tough," Warrick said.  "You didn't earn it, we gave it to you.  So try for a little more feeling when you tell me that you didn't kill Zimmer.  And then _tell _me that you didn't."

Grissom leaned across the table and looked Warrick in the eyes.  The apathy was gone, replaced by a dark intensity that Warrick had only seen once, but couldn't remember where.  Grissom's hands curled over the table into fists and he said:

"_I didn't kill her.  I never touched her_."

"Good," Warrick said.  "That's what I want to hear.  And if you can keep saying it like that, we won't have too many problems."

Grissom leaned back.  "No, Warrick.  I think we're going to have problems no matter what."

"What do you want us to do?" he asked, not knowing how to respond to that.  Pessimism was one thing - - he knew how to combat Grissom's bad attitude well enough - - but that dark, out-of-nowhere foreboding in Grissom's voice was something he hadn't seen coming.

Suddenly, he remembered where he'd seen that intensity before.  Greg, of course, when they were shooting pool.  Greg had made his shots that way, leaning over the table, not looking like the skinny DNA tech, not looking vulnerable or quirky, but just looking _focused_, all that spastic energy channeled into a single strike of the cue.

But Greg had tapped the eight ball in before he'd meant to, and Warrick didn't want Grissom anywhere near _any _kind of eight ball.

"You're in charge of the unit," Grissom said.  "Assign the cases.  You and Catherine can keep the Zimmer case, if you want."

"You sure you want Cath on it?"

"Yes," Grissom said sarcastically.  "Because I'm sure that it would really be confirming my innocence to have it get out that I took the person who doubted me off the case.  Yes, the press would enjoy that.  And of course it would play up well in court."

"You're not going to go to court," Warrick said quietly.  "Greg can prove that you're not guilty."

"And if Greg can't?  If you can't find anything?"

Warrick ignored him, mostly because he didn't have an answer to that question.  If there was nothing to be found, then the case would go cold, or Grissom would be arrested.  If the case went cold, then Grissom still might be fired due to the veil of suspicion that would always hang over him unless they found the real killer.  And if Grissom _were_ fired, then nothing would be able to hold them together.  Because they all really _had _built their lives around Grissom, they were dependent on him for love or approval.  It was all in Sara's smile, Greg's eyes, Catherine's voice, Nick's movements, and his own thoughts.  If Grissom went down, they'd all go down.

There wouldn't be a way out.

_It would end the world_, he thought.  _There'd be nothing left._

"We'll find something," he said, and then a thought occurred to him.  "Hey, Grissom - - do you know anything about white roses?"

"They symbolize death," Grissom said.  "And they were used prominently by Matthew Flowers, the obviously-named rose killer."

"Catherine says he was a myth."

He smiled.  Catherine may have said that Flowers was just the product of the tabloids, but Grissom had brought him up with little prompting.  They both thought that Flowers was real - - and then his mouth tightened.  There it was again - - needing Grissom's recognition, needing his agreement.  He used to be self-sustaining.  He didn't use to need anyone.  But Grissom, who _still_ didn't need anyone, had somehow become valuable.

"That's a theory," Grissom said, unaware of Warrick's thoughts.  "But I've studied a few of the rose cases, and they seem valid enough.  It's likely that a few of them were copy-cats, but in the cases where DNA or fingerprints were left behind, they all match up to the same person."

"Flowers?"

"That's the name we know he's always used," Grissom said.  "But Flowers is probably an alias, and his DNA isn't traceable.  It just matches up to the other cases.  There's never been any way to find him.  Why the question about the roses?"

"We found a white rose at the scene," Warrick said, and dug through the file to pull out one of his photographs.  He slid it across the table.  "Between Zimmer's thighs."

"Deflowered," he said.  "It's almost a pun."  Grissom pushed the photo away without studying it.

"That's what Catherine said, yeah."

"Keep Catherine on the case.  Keep Greg on the evidence.  And tell Sara - - tell Sara that I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have taken advantage of her like that."

"Will do," he said, standing.  He offered his hand to Grissom, as if they'd just met.  Grissom looked at him for a second, surprised, and then shook it.  He clenched Grissom's fingers as hard as he could.  "Don't go away on us, man."  He was surprised by the desperation in his voice.  "Stay here.  We need you."

"I'll do the best I can," Grissom said, with a small smile.  "Can I leave now?"

"Yeah.  As acting supervisor, I'm giving you some time off."

"I'll take it," Grissom said.  "Watch out for them, okay, Warrick?  If Flowers, or someone _emulating_ Flowers, is doing this, then it's not likely to stop soon.  Matthew Flowers has a history of going overboard, and I don't want anyone else getting hurt.  So tell everyone to be careful."

"We'll watch our backs.  You watch yours."

"I don't want to look at my back right now," Grissom said.  "There's already a knife sticking out of it."

"What do you mean?"

"You couldn't do something like this without an inside man," Grissom said simply.  "Someone had to know when the investigation was wrapping up on the rape charge, and someone had to know me well enough to understand where to hit, and how to hit the hardest."  He smiled wearily.  "I'm starting to think that Greg is right," he added softly.  "This has gone further than I thought it would - - and someone meant for this to happen.  Someone I trusted."

"That's impossible," Warrick said coldly.  "We wouldn't do that to you."

"Nothing's impossible, Warrick."

It was his confidence that made Warrick stand up in disgust.  Grissom had moved in seconds from asking Warrick to protect the team from telling Warrick that someone on the team was working against them.  And he didn't doubt it in the slightest - - Grissom actually believed it.  Grissom, the center of their universe, believed that one of them was some kind of - - saboteur.  Which was ridiculous, because it was impossible.  They couldn't turn against Grissom anymore than the earth could just decide to spin away from the sun.

"You're looking for a traitor, Grissom?  Maybe you're the one who's against us."  He slammed his palm against the table.  "_We need you_."

"I know," Grissom said.


	20. One Hand Clapping

I think this is probably my favorite chapter so far.  There's another twist in the roller-coaster track of plot (to use a metaphor Grissom would like).  Also, Warrick does pretty well as an acting supervisor, Nick is on his way home, Catherine starts a few minor fights, and Greg has a well-deserved nervous breakdown.  But most of all, I get to realize how much I really, really love writing Sara.  This chapter was a delight to write, so I really hope that you enjoy reading it.

- -

Chapter Twenty: One Hand Clapping (SARA)

- -

"The evidence is _missing_," Sara repeated.

Catherine nodded.  Sara couldn't help but notice that the last few days had taken a toll on Catherine, too - - she wasn't wearing any cosmetics, and the dark circles around her eyes were readily visible.  "All of it," she said, sounding miserable.  "The bloody sheets, the rose, the samples - - it's gone.  Vanished.  Disappeared."  Catherine's jaw was tight, and Sara could almost see the individual muscles tensing up.  "Dammit, Sara.  _It's all gone._"

"We can still get some tape samples from the scene," Warrick said.  He sounded as if he might be determined to look on the bright side, but his eyes were grim.  "But - - the blood - - the epithelials - - they're probably gone for good now.  We took the whole set of sheets into evidence."

"Great," Sara said.  "Just great.  So now, to the public, it looks like we're covering up for Grissom.  We've lost the only evidence that could prove him innocent."

"Or guilty," Warrick said.

She just looked at him.  Her words from a few hours ago were still ringing in her ears.  Asking if Grissom had killed Lizzie - - that was probably the worst mistake she could have made.  Maybe the worst one she'd ever made.  He'd reached out for her, and she'd turned against him.

Warrick held up his hands.  "I'm not accusing him.  We just have to stay objective.  You want _dayshift _on this, Sara?"

"No," she admitted, and added, bitterly, "I want it to be _solved_."

Nervous laughter tore through the three of them, and Sara held a hand to her eyes, wondering how long it had been since she'd had some sleep.  She couldn't really remember.  It seemed years ago.  Could this whole mess really have just started a few days earlier?  Impossible, surely, for lives to fall apart in the space of so few hours, relatively speaking.

When they were quiet again, she leaned back against the cool table.  "Who _had _the evidence?  When it went missing?"

Warrick looked reluctant to reveal anything, but he said, "Greg."

"_Greg_ had it?"  She didn't know what to make of that.  Greg was - - well, most of the time - - flawlessly responsible.  He didn't lose evidence, he _found _evidence.  "What's he saying about it?"

"He says that he went on a break around two in the morning and came back.  Says it was missing then.  He's looked all over for it, and can't find anything."  Warrick sighed.  "I - - I don't know if I believe him.  I mean, he looks pretty frantic, and you should've seen the lab, he must have torn it apart, but - - it's just a little too much right now, you know?  Lizzie.  Grissom.  And now the evidence is gone."

"Is anyone going to call Grissom?  Tell him?"

"No," Warrick said.  "Don't, Sara, please.  I know you want to, but don't.  He wouldn't take it well."

"Who would?"  Catherine's hand emerged from her purse with a pack of cigarettes and offered them around.  "_I _wouldn't."

Sara took one.  She hadn't smoked in almost two years, but she smoked now.

Warrick shook his head when Catherine pointed one in his direction.  "I'm not even sure that we _can _smoke in here," he said.

Sara inhaled; laughed.  She couldn't care about that right now.  If someone was going to come along and make her day even worse by putting out her cigarette, then fine.  She'd live with it.  She'd lived with everything that had happened so far.  One more setback wouldn't be too much.

"He apologized," Warrick said, looking at her.  "He said he shouldn't have taken advantage of you."

She didn't know what reply to make.  Taking advantage of her?  Maybe.  Maybe he had been.  He'd known or suspected something about Lizzie's death and the eminent crumbling of his life, and maybe he _had _taken advantage of her attraction a little.  But she'd wanted him to.  Her advantage was there for him to take, and she didn't regret it, not even now.

"Level with us, Warrick," Catherine said, after an awkward pause.  She held the cigarette between her fingers like a baton.  Sara wondered if she'd ever been a cheerleader.  "Why don't you _really _want to call Grissom and tell him?"

"I'm afraid," Warrick said.  The words sounded stark, and he looked embarrassed for having to say them.  "Afraid for Greg, I mean.  He could lose his job over this anyway - - he'll be suspended, at least - - and I don't want to see what happens if he runs into Grissom."

"Grissom wouldn't do anything to Greg," Sara said.  She hated the way her voice sounded unsure, and took another drag from the cigarette.  "I can't believe you're even _thinking _like that."

"Grissom - - damn, this is hard to say.  Grissom says that someone's trying to set him up.  Which is probably true, staying within the objective frame.  And he says that if someone _is _trying to set him up for killing Zimmer, they'd need someone on the inside."

"Because the epithelials on the sheets wouldn't match up to Grissom," Catherine said, getting it and nodding.  "So the missing evidence makes Grissom look bad."

"Guilty, anyway," Warrick said.  "So I don't want Grissom buzzing with inside-man theories and then hearing that Greg lost the case's crucial evidence."

"Maybe Greg didn't lose it," Catherine said.  Her voice was soft, contemplative.  "Maybe Grissom's right.  If there _is _someone on the inside - - why not Greg?  Maybe he lost it on purpose."

Warrick glared at her.  "You mind picking a side, Cath?  Grissom's guilty, Greg's guilty - - you want to figure out if you've got a stand on this before we continue?  Because accusing both parties isn't objectivity, it's schizophrenia."

"Greg didn't do it," Sara said.  This time, her voice sounded a little more certain.  Good.  "Greg wouldn't do anything like that, and Grissom wouldn't do anything to Greg."

"Oh, suddenly someone who sleeps with the boss is holier-than-thou," Catherine said.  She sounded like she might be on the verge of tears, and it ruined the meanness of her actual words.  She ground her cigarette out and said, "I'm sorry, Sara.  I didn't mean that."

"Sure," Sara said, not really forgiving her, but pretending.  "I just - - I kind of took a crash course on leaping to conclusions last night.  I don't want to do it again."

"So we talk to Greg," Warrick said.  "Sara, actually, _you _talk to Greg.  See if you can calm him down - - he's spinning his wheels right now."

"Gotcha," she said, trying to inject a little confidence into the room but feeling like it wasn't working.  Of course it wasn't.  Why be confident or upbeat right now, anyway?  What was the point?  Grissom was home, not in jail, sure, and, admittedly, the missing evidence worked both ways - - no one would bring him into custody with the evidence missing.  He couldn't be proved guilty - - but he couldn't be proved innocent, either.  The missing evidence put him in limbo.

_Probably enough for him to be quietly fired.  Not too much fanfare, but a lot of excuses.  Covallo won't want him around after this.  The lawyers would enjoy it too much - - having a prominent murder suspect running their evidence._

_It's not enough to say guilty-or-innocent, but it's enough for him to lose everything.  That's what he was talking about before.  That's why he kissed me.  Because he knew he had nothing left to lose._

It was a bitter revelation, and not one that she really cared for.  She pushed off the table and dropped her cigarette beside Catherine's, on the saucer.

"Anything else?" she asked.

"Yeah."  Warrick smiled.  It was a little tense, but it was definitely a smile.  "Nick's coming home.  He called last night from some payphone in Chicago.  They keep changing his flight, but he's headed back."

"He find anything?" Catherine asked.

"Nothing we didn't know already," Warrick said, with a sigh.  "He thinks he can confirm that Zimmer was assaulted in '98, but he was working on a rape charge.  He - - I don't think he's heard about the murder yet.  When we talked, things were looking good for Grissom.  I mean, we did the interview.  The settlement was looking good.  Now - - now things are even worse."

"It's not a great place to come home to right now," Sara agreed.  She straightened.  "I'll talk to Greg.  And then I'll talk to Grissom."

"Not a word about Greg," Warrick said.  "It's case information, Sara."

She held up her hands.  "I know how to be professional, Warrick.  Even around Grissom.  Actually, _especially _around Grissom."

She headed out, wondering if Warrick and Catherine were sleeping together or not.  They seemed to be constantly on edge around each other lately - - and what Warrick had said about Catherine accusing Grissom . . . Sara had let it slide.  She didn't have the right to criticize Catherine on that account - - she'd done it herself.  She hoped that Warrick didn't know that.

Greg's lab was dead quiet and wrecked.  Papers were scattered all over the place, drawers and cupboards had been flung wide open, and boxes had had their contents dumped on the floor.

Greg himself sat almost dead-center in the room in his chair.  His shoulders were slumped forward, his head buried in his hands.  As she got closer, Sara could see that his shoulders were trembling under the pale blue lab-coat.  She touched his arm gently, not wanting to startle him, but as she felt him jump, she knew the intent had been useless.  Greg wasn't just on the edge, he was past it.  He was standing in empty space.

He looked at her.  His face was screwed up, his mouth in a taut grimace.  "I looked," he said miserably.  "I looked _everywhere_."  He gestured at the chaos of the lab.  "There's no way - - Sara, I don't _do _stuff like this.  I don't _lose _things."

"I know, Greg," she said, and the confidence she had been trying for all night finally came through.  "I know you don't.  We'll figure this out."

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't," Greg said quietly.  "If it shows up again, someone can always claim it was contaminated."

She knew he was right, but he didn't look like he wanted that to be confirmed.

"Hey, this hasn't left the lab yet," she said.  "If it turns up, we'll see if we can prove that the seals weren't broken.  Okay?  Greg, no one thinks that you did this on purpose."

"I could hear you," he said, voice barely above a whisper.  "I could _hear _you in the break room.  Catherine.  She thinks that I did it on purpose.  And Warrick thinks that Grissom's going to kill me.  Not that I don't deserve it - -"

"Greg, don't say that," she said, feeling uncomfortable.  She didn't know what she could say to make him feel better.  She didn't even know if there was anything that _could _make him feel better.  If Greg hadn't lost the evidence on purpose, then he'd lost it on accident, which was almost as bad.  She didn't think that he could be that careless, but - -

Without a pause, she switched into investigator mode.  "Greg, did anyone have access to your lab while you were on break?"

Greg looked up, startled.  "Um - - sorry, Sara - - but, everyone.  The DNA lab doesn't lock.  I was only gone for a few minutes - - coffee and bathroom.  Maybe five to seven minutes.  I didn't see anyone when I left - - no one hanging around the door.  You think that someone stole it?"

"Someone trying to set up Grissom," Sara said, nodding.  "It's possible."

Possible, yes, and she definitely liked that idea better than Greg losing _all _the case's evidence.  Maybe if one sample had gone missing, she could have believed that he was to blame, but all of them?  It just wasn't realistic.  Someone was trying too hard.  And she couldn't believe - - she _refused _to believe - - that Greg was the one behind it.  Not when Greg had paid for pancakes and looked so wan at last night's dinner - - not when he'd only been trying to help.

Greg nodded.  The desperation in his eyes had sharpened into an eerily intent concentration.

"If no one was outside the lab when I left, then the person who got in here and took the evidence is someone who could see me without me noticing that they're watching.  Someone who could blend in with everyone else."

"You sound like Grissom," she said.  She grabbed a chair and wheeled it up beside him.  "But you're right.  Only one problem - - everyone who works in this lab has a reason to pass by or see you without you getting suspicious.  Can you remember anyone in particular?"

"Um . . ."  Greg closed his eyes.  "Jacqui.  A few detectives.  I recognized them, but I don't know their names.  Not like they talk to techs.  Dr. Robbins.  You guys - - Sara, I can't.  I can't remember them all.  I was working . . . and this place is made of glass.  Anyone could see in, and besides, there's heavy foot traffic through here _all _the time."

"Okay."  She tried not to be impatient.  "Did anyone stand out?  Anyone say anything to you?"

"Robbins," Greg said promptly.  "He dropped in for a second.  He knows I've been trying to break out into the field, asked me how that was going, if I'd heard anything about Grissom."

She didn't believe that Robbins had stolen the evidence anymore than she believed that Greg had.  There was a connection she was missing here.  Some link that she couldn't catch - - and hated herself for that.  Sara Sidle, Grissom's star pupil, missing out on something she could almost (but not quite) get her mind wrapped around.  She was trying to figure out what it could be when Catherine and Warrick cautiously entered the lab.

"Well?" Warrick asked.

She answered for both of them.  "We think that someone took the evidence on purpose.  Someone who _isn't _Greg," she specified.

"Yeah," Greg said hotly.  "_Sara _doesn't think that I'm stealing evidence to set up Grissom."  He glared at Catherine.  "One thing to think that I made a mistake, another thing to think that I did it intentionally.  I wouldn't care so much if you thought I screwed up.  I mean, everybody screws up sometime, right, Catherine?  I mean, just because some of us don't blow up DNA labs and DNA techs when we do - -"

Catherine hit him.

Sara thought it was safe to say that that shocked the hell out of everyone in the room.  It was a sharp noise, and abrupt, just Catherine's hand flying up to slap Greg.  His head jerked to the right almost in slow-motion, and then Warrick was grabbing Catherine's arm and Sara was holding Greg's shoulders, not sure if she was holding him back or not - - he didn't seem too interested in moving.

_What is the sound of one hand clapping? _Sara thought.  _A slap.  Not the most illuminating answer to any Zen saying._

Catherine's handprint stood out on Greg's pale skin, quickly reddening.

Catherine swore as Greg slowly raised his hand and traced the hurt area.  "I'm sorry," she said.  "Greg, I'm sorry.  I didn't mean - -"

"Yeah," he said, not looking at her.  "I get it.  I shouldn't have said that anyway."

Sara couldn't hear if he was forgiving Catherine or not.  She thought that he probably was - - or, at least, that he was coming to peace with it already.  He shouldn't have said what he'd said, and she shouldn't have done what she'd done.  Sara wished she forgave people that fast.  She still wasn't sure she and Catherine were okay after the "holier-than-thou" comment.

"Okay," Warrick said.  "I don't really know what to do here.  Technically, it's a mandatory suspension."

Greg shook his head.  "If you suspend her, suspend me.  I'm due for a suspension, anyway.  As soon as Covallo hears that the evidence is missing, I'll probably lose my job - - _forget _about a suspension."

"No one is going to lose their job around here," Sara said.  "We're okay, right?"  She looked at Warrick; Catherine; Greg.  Especially Catherine.  "We're okay?"

Catherine nodded at her, and then turned back to Greg.  "I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have."

"I forgive you," he said flippantly.  "My face is a little more upset, though.  But we of the Sanders clan are tough-skinned.  I'll be fine.  We're cool."

"Cool," Warrick said, with a trace of humor.  "Yeah, I remember that.  It was nice.  I don't think we get to go back to that.  Not right now, anyway."

She left early, and Warrick didn't ask questions about it, just nodded as she clocked out.  Greg was back in the lab, running other samples overtime, the reddened handprint on his cheek slowly turning darker as it bruised.  She said goodbye to him, and she and Catherine traded awkward glances over mounds of paperwork as she waved.  She let Warrick hug her, let him whisper into her hair: "Don't do anything that you're going to regret, okay?"

She said she wouldn't; wasn't sure whether or not she was lying.

She was just sure that she needed to see Grissom.  She needed to apologize for what had happened.  And she needed to break just one promise.  Just one.

She didn't think that Greg had done anything wrong, and she knew that Grissom would agree.  And if Grissom could shed some light on the situation - - could tell her anything about who would want to frame him - - or could tell her how he had known that Lizzie was dead - - then breaking her promise to Warrick would be worth it.  Professionalism had gone out the window.  Grissom had nothing left but her, and she had nothing left but him.  She would do whatever it took to not lose him along with everything else.

Even if doing that was something she'd regret.

Maybe thatwas the sound of one hand clapping, too.


	21. Improvisation

I'm really appreciating the reviews - - all of you make writing this story so, so worthwhile.  It really brightens my day to come home and see some new reviews.  So thank you, thank you _a lot_.

In other news - - a Flowers chapter.  And I shouldn't like this sociopathic, utterly amoral-but-utterly-suave mass murderer, but I kind of do.  I think that may be a character flaw on my part.

- -

Chapter Twenty-one: Improvisation (OTHER)

- -

"This is not going according to plan."

Flowers leaned back in his chair, curling his hand around the glass of Coke.  His fingertip teased the straw, sliding it through the lake of cola and ice.  "Relax.  I happen to have incredible talents in the area of improvisation.  This is just a detour.  Things will still work out the way you want."

"We don't even know who stole the evidence."

"It was probably Ecklie."

"You're supposed to have a handle on Ecklie.  I'm _paying _you to have a handle on Ecklie."

"No, you're paying me because I can do everything you want with a minimum of effort.  Let's face it, I'm the workhorse of the group.  You gave me a list of Gil Grissom's whereabouts for the last twenty years, I picked Harvard, and I found you Lizzie Zimmer.  You have to admit that it's working.  His life is falling apart, piece by piece.  What more do you want?"

The financier slid his elbows on the table and bent over, his face intent.  "I want to know who's interfering with us.  And, if necessary, I want you to take care of them."

"Hey, trust me, I'd kill Conrad Ecklie for free."

"What if it's not Ecklie?  He's the one who told us, anyway, I doubt he'd rat himself out."

"If it's not Ecklie, then I'll find out who it is, and I'll have them swinging from a tree by sundown.  Or something of that sort, by something like that time.  All is not yet lost."

"Good.  I'm trusting you on this."

Flowers smiled.  "It's very dangerous to trust me, sir.  People end up dead."

"I'm hoping that'll be the case.  Just keep our agreement in mind."

His smile hardened.  "I don't forget anything.  In case you haven't realized it, I'm not one of your typical goons.  I have my own agenda, my own artistic tastes - - but I _am _under your employ, however temporarily, and at this particular point and time, I'm not going to do anything you wouldn't approve of."

The financier nodded.  "I have something else I need you to take care of."

"I can't promise I'll get to it immediately, not if you want me to spend the majority of today finding out who tampered with the evidence."

"Sometime before the end of the week will suffice."

The financier slid a photograph across the table.  Flowers glanced at it, expecting to recognize it immediately, and when he didn't, held it up to the light to study it more in-depth.  It was a grainy identification shot - - a driver's license, maybe.  A name that he didn't know.

"I want them dead," the financier said calmly, "and I want _this _death to go off without a hitch.  We can pin it on Grissom easily enough."

"Fine.  I think I can take care of this."  He put the photograph in his wallet, like a father storing away an image of adoring child.  He sipped at his Coke, took another bite of the sandwich, and said, "Oh, by the way - - Claberson is coming back.  Thought you might like to know."

"I already knew that, Matthew," the financier said.

Flowers whistled.  "Is there anyone you _can't _get information on?  And I thought I was thorough."

"I have my resources," the financier admitted, smug.  "I haven't heard about his reaction, though.  Care to tell me what _you _know?"

"He's a little upset.  Apparently, we forgot to inform him that I was going to kill his client.  Don't worry, he isn't going to roll over on us.  Poor Abraham just realized the dismal truth of life - - every man is mortal, and every man can die.  Even hotshot Harvard lawyers."

"So Claberson, our prodigal, returns to Vegas - - but _not _to report us."

"No.  You'll like this.  He wants to secure his position.  He wants to make sure that we need him too much to kill him - - which, of course, we never will.  He might make it out alive anyway, though, if I'm just too bored to give a decent death."

"What's he plan to offer?"

"Gil Grissom's weakness."

"We've been over this.  We've combed through his files, his records.  No wife.  No child.  No surviving parents or siblings.  Gil Grissom is impenetrable, except through his work."

"But that's what Claberson's offering us.  He says he knows something else that Grissom needs."

Flowers finished off the club sandwich and ordered another Coke while he told the financier the same story that Claberson had spun for him over the phone.  "He was a teaching assistant in Harvard the year Gil Grissom taught the entomology seminar.  He said that Grissom fell in love with one of his students."

"There's no significance to that.  Grissom doesn't have a lover.  We can't dredge up some girl out of his past and expect her to be enough to manipulate him."

"That's just the thing.  He doesn't have a lover, but according to Claberson, he has a woman with whom he is in love."  Flowers brushed crumbs off the front of his impeccable suit and leaned forward.  "Her name is Sara Sidle, and I'm going to kill her.  We don't even have to frame him for that.  Her death will be enough to end him, if Claberson is right."

"And if Claberson is wrong?"

"If he's wrong, Sidle's still pretty.  Prettier than Lizzie, and I like a strong woman.  Like killing them, too."

"I admire the caliber of your art, Matthew."

"I admire yours, too," Flowers said candidly.  "As long as you continue paying for these excellent lunches, in any case.  So I'm going to kill these people, and I'm going to find out who stepped outside the line.  Ecklie thinks - - not often, but in this instance - - that it may have been his assistant.  Unfortunately, they haven't been in contact yet."

"Do you have a name for this person yet?  If Conrad Ecklie just goes around divulging information - -"

"He's terrified of me," Flowers said.  "He won't give anything away.  Don't worry about it.  If he spills anything too important, I'll slit his throat."

"A direct approach."

"Of course.  Which of these two do you want dead first?"

"Sara Sidle is your priority, not mine.  And since I'm the one paying you, take care of my business first."

"Understood.  Not a problem.  I'll see if I can get it done by tonight, even.  We're framing Grissom for this, right?  What's his motive supposed to be?"

"Leave his motives to me," the financier said.  "I'm good at short-term improvisation, too.  If someone's going to try and alter our plan, I'm going to change it right back at them.  Now, tell me about this assistant of Ecklie's - - tell me what you know."

"Male.  Probably employed at the crime lab.  He's supposed to be a 'safeguard', someone that Ecklie can pass the blame to if the plan goes wrong - - or someone who can cover up for him if he needs any backup."

"Why on earth would he think he needed backup?"

"Well, he has the crazy idea that he's in control of this situation.  He doesn't even know that you exist.  He's our red herring.  Anyone on the outside thinks that they've found the top of the pinnacle, and they've really only found Ecklie, because he's under the delusion that _he's _controlling _me_.  Well, he thinks that he _can_ control me, anyway.  Same thing."

"You're a brilliant, sadistic bastard," the financier said, smiling.

"Thank you.  Your admiration means a lot."

"You're also a fairly good liar."

"I was hoping that you'd notice that.  Do you want me to kill Ecklie's assistant or not?"

"Find out who he is first.  Then report back."

"I can't report back.  I have no idea where to find you.  Which seems a little suspicious, because _I'm _the mass-murderer here and _you're _the one who won't hand out his name."

"I've killed people in my day, Matthew."

Flowers was genuinely surprised.  He'd pictured the financier as someone who was merely an expert at pulling strings.  As much as he genuinely liked the older man, he'd taken it for granted that the financier wouldn't get his hands dirty.  It pleased him in some vague way that he couldn't define.

"You want to touch any of these?"

"Not right now.  I'm under suspicion myself.  Can't afford to mix in my DNA or fingerprints with this mess.  Besides, you're the artist.  You take care of it."

"Always nice to have a patron," Flowers deadpanned as he stood.  "Are you going to call me soon so I can tell you if I've found out this identity?"

"I'll be in touch."

"I'll be delighted.  I'm stealing this fork."

"Any particular reason why?"

"No," Flower said as he slipped it into his coat pocket.  "But I started out as a thief, and I never like to fall out of practice in any area of my career."

He left the restaurant with the fork in his pocket, an elderly man's jacket slung over his arm, and almost a hundred dollars in tips folded between his fingers.

No, definitely hadn't fallen out of practice.


	22. The Practicing Masochist

NOTE: An apology for the recent lack of updating - - and it's a good one.  I went on a brief, two-day vacation the day after the last update, and came back to find out that a) George and Jorja had been fired (thank God they're back now) and b) my computer was hit by lightning.  The hard drive was saved, thankfully, but it took a while to go through repairs.  I finally got it back, so, at long last, a new chapter of the story.

Sara tells secrets and Grissom gets some answers, but not enough.  Also, a little more GSR.

- -

Chapter Twenty-two: The Practicing Masochist (GRISSOM)

- -

"I have to admit, this isn't how I expected to see the morning after," Sara said quietly. 

She handed him the waxed cup of coffee and insinuated herself into the room.  There was no other word for it.  One second, she was outside and he was determined to be alone, and the next, she was standing on his warm beige carpet, holding a cardboard container of Starbucks coffees.  He stood there, door still open, wondering how he had let this happen.

"I was picturing breakfast," she continued, "or at least some time spent lying on the sheets, maybe with your arm around me, while we watch TV.  But I guess this is as good as it gets."  She took the plastic cap off her coffee and sipped at it.  Smiled.  "Your coffee's getting cold, Grissom.  Come on, drink.  I remembered what kind you like."

He closed the door, and took a drink of the coffee.  It burned his tongue.  "Sara, this isn't the best time."

"You're right.  The best time was probably last night, before we were interrupted.  But this is the best we're going to get, Grissom, and I'm going to take it."

She sat down, and he sat down next to her.  He could smell her shampoo, something vaguely fruit-scented.  Pears, maybe.  He tried to wonder what it would have been like if they _had _had their morning after, and she had showered in his townhouse.  He had unscented shampoo.  He would have been able to touch his lips to Sara's hair and taste only her, with no interference.

Right now, she smelled like pears and fresh coffee.  He thought that her lips might taste the same way.

"I can't take back what I said last night," she said.  "But I don't think that you killed Lizzie Zimmer."

What she said last night.  He wanted to lie and say that she hadn't bothered him, or that he hadn't even heard her.  But he couldn't make the words come to his mouth, so he just nodded.

"But I want to know," Sara said, "how you knew that she was dead."

He almost spilled his coffee.  He kept his hand around the cup and stopped it at the last minute, but she had seen the jolt.

"I noticed," she said.  "You weren't surprised when they came.  You even said that you knew what they wanted from you.  So I know that you were sure that someone killed her, but I don't know how you knew, or why you didn't just tell me."

"I wanted - -"

_You_.

"I wanted to be wrong," he said.

"Well, you weren't.  Zimmer's dead.  Someone raped her, killed her, and framed you.  So tell me what you know, Grissom."

"Not much," he said honestly.  He was too close here; too tempted to touch her.  He could feel the warmth from her skin.  "Sara - - are you here as a CSI or as . . . as a friend?"

"As a friend, Grissom?"  She frowned at him.  "Are we even friends?"

"We were friends once," he said, "and I don't know what we are now.  But still, I need an answer, please."

"I'm here as a friend then, I guess.  I want to fix what happened between us.  I screwed up.  I shouldn't have ever said what I said, and I didn't mean to say it.  I was - - shocked.  Because you'd known something about Lizzie, and you hadn't told me.  I was standing there in my bra, and all I could think about was the look on your face."

He could still see her in his mind's eye.  She had been behind him, but he knew, nonetheless, how she would have looked.  Holding up her shirt to cover herself, her face pale, eyes searching for some kind of contact point, some familiarity.

"Someone called me," he said.  "Someone told me that she was dead.  That was it."

"Can you identify the voice?"

"Male," he said.  "Adult.  I don't know if I'd recognize it again.  It was just for a second.  All he said was, 'She's dead'.  And then he hung up."  He concentrated.  "It wasn't anyone I knew.  No one was trying to warn me to cover anything up.  It was a stranger."

"It was our killer."

"Possibly.  Or an accomplice."

She nodded.  She looked absolutely alive, more vibrant than he'd seen her in years.  "Sure.  Warrick's gonna go crazy when he hears this.  This is great, Grissom.  If we can prove that anyone called you during that time . . ."

"What are the odds of that?"

"Don't start sounding defeated on me.  You didn't do this.  We're going to prove that."

He said, softly, "Warrick's going to take you off the case."

"He wouldn't do that."

"He hasn't yet," Grissom admitted, "but he will.  Especially if he finds out that you came to see me today.  You have a personal involvement."

"We all do.  It's _you_."

"And that's why you, of all people, can't work the case.  And I'm going to tell Warrick that."

She clenched her coffee cup in her hand, her frown deepening into a scowl.  "Do you get some kind of bizarre kick out of doing this to yourself?  If you'd just let someone help you, love you, _whatever_ - - maybe this wouldn't happen.  You're a masochist."

"I'm a realist," he said, but her words stung anyway.  Was he a masochist?  He didn't enjoy sending her away, didn't get any thrill out of denying himself the right to touch her, to kiss her.  There were reasons for it - - and they were certainly more complex than just self-punishment.  Of course they were.  Because if they weren't, then he was a fool.  A fool with some sort of Messiah-complex.

No, that wasn't him.  That couldn't be him.  Warrick carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and Nick wanted to be some kind of modern-day white knight, okay.  And even Greg might have some kind of fixation - - a loyalty, maybe - - that had driven him from the lab into the break room just to say that he trusted Grissom: but that wasn't normal, and that wasn't him.

He didn't enjoy being who he was, he just was.

"Reality isn't giving up on everything you need or want just because it might be impractical."  She shook her head and set the coffee cup down on the table.  "But I didn't come here so we could critique you.  I came here so we could talk."

"So talk," he said shortly.

"There's something I haven't told you."

"Is it about the case?"

"Yes."  She leaned forward, her hands on her knees, and she was almost touching him then.  "And if anything would get me kicked off the case, it would be telling you this."

"So don't tell me.  I'm not going to risk your job for my sake."

"You aren't risking my job.  _I'm _risking my job."

"Sara, whatever you're going to say, don't.  Don't say it.  I'm sorry about what I said before - - I need you on this case.  I need all of you on this.  You're my best CSI, and I don't want you to jeopardize your position _or _my chances of being proved innocent because of this . . ."

"You're the realist," she said.  "And this is reality."

"Sara, don't."

She kissed him.  Briefly.  It wasn't enough.  It was too much.  He couldn't decide and didn't want to decide which, he only knew that he kissed her back.  It only lasted a few seconds, but when it was over, he would have listened to anything she had to say.  He would have risked anything for her right in that moment, or allowed her to risk anything - - whatever she wanted.  He loved her . . . and hated her just a little for knowing what he would let her do to him.  For knowing what she could do.

She moved her mouth from his to his ear, and he could feel her lips move in their whisper:

"The evidence is missing."

He drew back, as if she'd hit him instead of whispered.  "_What?_"

She just nodded.

"All of it?  Everything?"

Another nod.  "The samples . . . the sheets . . . the scene itself is still intact, but we took almost everything back to the lab for analysis.  We - - we thought that we were being thorough.  I mean, how could we have known that this was going to happen?"

He wasn't processing this.  He just sat there.

Everything was gone.  All of his chances had just been taken from him.  He couldn't be proved guilty, but he couldn't be proved innocent, either.  It was a hellish limbo of indecision, and he knew that everyone would assume the worst.  After all, it was his lab, wasn't it?  His people.  If he had asked one of them, if he asked, so softly and subtly, for the evidence to be lost, because it condemned him, they might have even done it.

"Where?  Where was it?"

Sara swallowed.  "Greg.  He took a break - - just a couple of minutes - - and he says that it was missing when it came back."

_"Apology accepted.  I was jumping at shadows anyway."_

_And now _you're _jumping at shadows, _he told himself.  _You know Greg.  For God's sake, you _trained _Greg.  He wouldn't take it.  He's not part of some elaborate scheme to bring about your downfall.  He went on a break, that's all, he went on a damned break and SOMEONE ELSE took it, not him.  You know that.  You know that you can believe that._

"Then I'm going to trust him," Grissom said.

"I'm impressed," she said.  "But yeah, I think you're right.  He was . . . you didn't even see him.  He was wrecked, Griss.  Shoulders shaking.  He tore the lab apart looking for that stuff.  He wasn't even on the map anymore.  When Catherine hit him, for a second I thought that he was going to hit her back."

"Catherine hit him?"

"Slapped him," Sara said.  She ran a hand over her face, drawing back a few loose strands of hair.  "She - - she thought that he might have lost the evidence on purpose, and he heard her say it.  He said that I didn't think he'd done that.  Told her that everyone screws up sometimes, but not everyone blows up the lab when they do it.  So she hit him."

She sighed.  Grissom watched her, fascinated.  She looked exhausted suddenly, as if these confessions and that one single sigh had taken so much out of her that she could barely stand to sit up.  She leaned forward, and almost collapsed against him.  He held her uncertainly, his hands flat against the smooth surface of her back.  She gave one single, tearless sob into his shoulder, and then was still.

If he hadn't been able to hear her breathing, he would have been worried.  Too many people were dying, too many people were being hurt.  And above all else, he would _not _lose Sara.

"We're falling apart, Grissom," she whispered.  "Everyone's turning on each other.  This - - this is hurting us, bad.  God, I wish Nick were here.  I miss him.  He could've handled this better."

"I haven't heard from him since he was en-route to Boston."

He was abruptly worried.  He hadn't thought about Nick all day, but concern rocketed into him.  Was he going to get another phone call, just a whispered, _He's dead_, and then hear the line go dead?  Was he going to have to stare at photos of Nick's body?

"He's on his way home," Sara said.  She pulled back, rubbing her eyes.  "He couldn't find anything to help us - - and he doesn't even know Lizzie's dead yet.  When he left, this was just a rape case."  She gave a short, unpleasant laugh, almost like a bark.  "Sounds terrible, doesn't it?  Just a rape case.  It seemed like such a big deal, too."

"It's gotten worse."

"It's gotten as bad as it can get."  She looked at him nakedly.  "Hasn't it?"


	23. Knight and Martyr

So, it's been a while since we've had a Nick chapter.  Let's bring him back and make his life suck just a little bit more.  Also, this chapter is what I have deemed the Point of No Return (PONR, for short).  Those of you who are still hoping for a completely happy and sunshine-y resolution, with lots of bunnies and rainbows, you can leave now, and there will be no hard feelings.  Those of you who like to watch the blood hit the walls and the bodies hit the floor, you are very sadistic, and we are very much alike.

Thus, Nick and Warrick in the break room, and Nick and Greg on the roof.

- -

Chapter Twenty-three: Knight and Martyr (NICK)

- -

He sat there, hands folded over his lap like a child eager for a lesson, and listened to it all.  Warrick explained it to him in a slack, almost dead voice.  His tone didn't shake with anger even when he reached Lizzie's death and the missing evidence, he just told the story of the last few days as if he were telling Nick about an insurance seminar he'd attended.  If Warrick's hands hadn't been trembling, Nick would never have noticed that something was wrong.

"Sara left early," Warrick said, "and I sent Catherine home."  He sighed and sat down in one of the break room's small plastic chairs.  "I tried to get Greg to leave, too, but he won't.  He's up on the roof right now, I think.  I ought to go up there and make sure he doesn't decide to jump off or something, but I'm just too damn tired."  He gave Nick a weary smile.  "Not so much fun, playing boss.  You want to try?"

"No thanks," Nick said, the first thing he'd said at all since he'd walked into the lab and Warrick had derailed him, saying there were a few things he needed to know.  "Doesn't look like my kind of thing.  And I'm just going to have to add on to your bad news tally."

"I already know you didn't find anything in Boston," Warrick began, but Nick cut him off.

"I didn't find out anything in Boston that you didn't already know, yeah," he said.  "But someone found me on the _way _to Boston, and I'm not too happy about it.  I lied my ass off about why I was headed east, and I think I pulled it off, but it's all a matter of whether he'll remember my name when it comes up at a trial."

"So who is this guy?"

"Abraham Claberson," Nick said, and finally, it was out into the air.  It felt good to say it at last, to confess it - - even just to Warrick - - because he'd been carrying the weight of Claberson in his head for days on end, and he didn't think he could have stood it much longer.  He watched the burden travel in a short path to Warrick, who sighed again.

"I'm sorry," Nick said.  "We were sitting next to each other, and we started talking.  I didn't even know that he was Zimmer's lawyer until someone in Boston told me."

Sweet, mousy little Amy with her orange tea and disarming smile seemed to be an eternity at all.  Closer was the fear, the nervousness of the realization about Claberson, crossing and re-crossing his legs as that husky voice from the past whispered again and again in his ear, _Come on, Nicky, let's go_.

_You let the good things go and invite the bad things along with you_, he thought.  _You don't ever drop things like that by the side of the road._

"You know what, I don't even care," Warrick said, sagging so that his head fell forwards into his hands.  "I'm so sick of this.  I'm just glad you're back, man.  You don't know how much we all freaked when we heard that you weren't here.  Panic City."

If this were how bad things had gotten in Vegas, Nick almost wished he'd stayed in Boston, even with all of its uncertainties.  In a split second, he saw himself dating Amy, marrying Amy, and working at one of the Cambridge labs, wrapped up in scarves and overcoats in the winter, and building snowmen with his kids in the yard.  It vanished when he opened his eyes again to Warrick.

"I just - - I can't believe this," Nick said, moving his hand in a swathe to indicate all of it, everything.  "How did things just - - get this far off-course, this quickly?"

Warrick's lips were white, pressing together, and Nick realized that Warrick didn't have an answer.

"You want on the case, Nick?"

Jetlag was seeping into him, exhausting every inch of him, but he nodded anyway.  He had a headache and he had barely slept for the last few days.  Arriving in Vegas was supposed to have cleared the grime off him.  He was supposed to have returned to find that everything had been sorted out on the rape charge, but now the rape charge was murder and the evidence was irrevocably compromised.  He wanted sleep and a shower, in that order, but he said yes anyway, because, like he'd heard whispered before, he was the boss's bitch, the company workhorse, the dependable one.  The solid one.  The one who didn't screw up too badly and didn't shine too brightly.  Just there.  Oh yeah, That Guy.  Give him the cases that you don't want, the trick rolls and the forgeries, and give him a pat on the back if he needs one, because people like _that _need encouragement every once in a while or they're liable to just snap and kill someone or themselves.  Not that losing That Guy would be, you know, heartbreaking or anything, but we'd have to rehire and the paperwork would just be so messy.

Every "Good, Nick" and "Nice work" came out from between Grissom's teeth like appeasement.

But just because he saw right through it didn't mean that he wanted to lose it, and it didn't mean that he wanted to lose _Grissom_, because, right or wrong, That Guy or one of Those People, he liked Grissom, and he needed Grissom.

"Tell me what you need me to do," Nick said.

"Find out everything you can - - past cases, signatures, everything - - about Matthew Flowers."

Nick said, incredulously, "Matthew Flowers?  The serial killer?  Isn't he supposed to be a legend or something, or just a bunch of copycat crimes?  Like trying to track down Jack the Ripper, man."

"Grissom thinks he's real, and more importantly, our evidence _seemed _to say that he was still alive.  Possibly here."

"You're kidding me."

"Hand to God.  We've still got the pictures of that damn white rose someone around here - - oh, here."  Warrick pulled a photo out of the file on the table, and handed it to Nick.

White rose, on bloody sheets.  Nick winced at the sight of it.  He set it face-down on the table, pushing it away with his fingertips.

"We've still got the most important evidence though, right?" he said.  "We still have Lizzie's body."  A sudden fear struck him.  "I mean, we _do _have Lizzie's body, right?"

"Yeah.  Yeah, we haven't managed to lose that yet.  Give it time, and I'm sure the lab will be invaded by grave-robbers or something, but for now, Dr. Robbins is working on it.  I'd like to say that we traced the semen through CODIS and got a hit, but we didn't, and that was one of the tests Greg ran _before _the stuff disappeared."

"Grissom's DNA would be in the system, though, right?"

"Yeah, but not in CODIS," Warrick said, "and that was the only database we could check before it went missing, and we can't get anymore from Zimmer - - Robbins already bathed her and everything."

"This situation blows," Nick said bleakly.  He poured another cup of coffee and looked at it instead of even starting to drink.  "Okay, I'll run through our database and see what I can find on Rose-Boy.  And I'd like to stop by Grissom's tonight, talk to him in person."  He frowned.  "Assuming I don't pull a Brass and walk in on something I didn't expect to see.  You think Sara's over there?"

"I told her to stay clear of him for right now," Warrick said.

"And I ask again, do you think Sara's over there?"

"Yeah," Warrick admitted.  "I'd be more surprised if she was just sitting at home."  He opened the file again and looked down at the photos.  Nick could see them from an angle, but with the distance, they all looked the same.  Besides, they'd never be able to make a case on photographic evidence alone, but he guessed that Warrick knew that and didn't feel like pointing it out.  They had to do what they could.

He squeezed Warrick's shoulder as he walked to the exit, but as his arm swung past, Warrick grabbed his wrist.  "Hey, Nick?  Do me one more favor."

"Sure, what do you want?"

"Make sure Greg hasn't jumped off the roof by now, and see if you can get him to come back inside.  Or, better yet, see if you can get him to go home for a while."

_Boss's bitch_, a voice crooned in his ear, _doesn't really matter the boss is, as long as someone can tell you what to do.  And you'll do it - - and do it _adequately, _we won't say well because we won't lie to ourselves, will we, Nicky?  And by the way, take your pants off and just lie on the bed, okay?  Let's go, Nicky.  Come on, let's make it._

Breath against his ear and skin against his skin, and so many unending whispers, voices of insecurity and history, pulling him down.

"No problem," he said.

The stairs leading up to the roof always seemed to be from somewhere else.  They were slick steel, unpainted, and polished to a shine, even though he'd never seen anyone polish them.  Even the handrails were the same way, impersonal and smooth, leading upwards, towards the inevitable.  And, of course, the roof.  He never understood why Greg always ended up there when something was stressing him out - - Nick hated climbing those stairs, and didn't find the roof, with its dust and ascending smoke, particularly soothing in itself.

But there Greg was, sure enough, sitting on the ledge with his legs dangling out over the face of the building, so precariously balanced that for a minute, Nick thought Warrick was right, and Greg was just going to slide down the edge and off, into the city.

"Greg?"

Greg jumped, but, thankfully, more to the back than to the front.  Hiking his legs up, he spun around.

Nick didn't know what to think.  When he'd left Las Vegas, Greg had looked - - well, healthy.  Alive.  Greg had been jumpy and excitable, sure, but he'd never had that zombie look he had now.  His skin was almost sallow, his eyes rimmed with purplish circles from lack of sleep, and there was a wide bruise on his cheek - - Catherine's slap.  His lower lip was swollen, too, probably from the sliding force of the blow.  His clothes were hanging on him as if he'd become a skeleton in the last few days, but when Greg straightened, Nick was able to see that _that, _at least, had been an optical illusion from Greg's uncommon slouch.  Greg had maybe lost a little weight, but not that much.

He should have said hi, or something, but what came out was, "Dude, you look like shit."

Greg laughed, a laugh that sounded more like a scream than anything else.  His hands were balled into fists at his sides.

"You're back," Greg said.

"Sure am."

"You're _here_."

"Yeah," Nick said.  He wondered if Warrick might be right about Greg's mental state at the moment.  Greg's eyes looked unfocused, as if he were the one not entirely there.  "I came up here to see you.  You okay, man?"

"No."  Greg shook his head from side to side and the snapped it back to the center.  "No, I'm not really okay."  He collapsed in a heap down to the roof's surface, and Nick could see the tiny explosion of dust swirl up around Greg's jeans.  "Not so much, no.  Why don't you tell me about Boston?  I bet it's nice there.  I always wanted to take a trip there when I lived in New York, but we never got around to it."

"It's nice," Nick said, carefully sitting down beside Greg.  "It's a lot greener there.  I've never seen so many trees - - and all the old buildings . . ."  He didn't know what else to add.  His time in Massachusetts hadn't really been a tourist's idea of fun, and he'd spent most of his time in his hotel room, chain-drinking Cokes from the vending machine and wondering whether or not Claberson had known who he was.  "I stole some towels from the hotel for you."

Greg laughed that nervous, shrill laugh again.

"Awesome.  Free towels.  I hope you stayed somewhere nicer than a Holiday Inn."

"I went extravagant, since Grissom was footing the bill and everything," he said, and then immediately wished he hadn't.  Mentioning Grissom seemed to bring back the dead look in Greg's eyes.

Greg actually lay down on the roof, his arms folded behind his head and his elbows sticking up in the air, thin and sharp, like the wooden joints of a puppet, and his legs splayed out in the darkness before them both, his toes pointing towards the barely-visible stars.  He was wearing tennis shoes, Nick noticed, the rubber tips scuffed and then rubbed chalky-white with roof dust.  He stared at Greg's shoelaces because he couldn't look at Greg himself.

"Grissom's going to lose his job," Greg said, "and so am I."

"No way," Nick said, with more confidence than he had in his entire body.  "No one's going to let that happen to either of you.  Have a little faith."

"You've been gone a little too long, Nick," Greg said softly.  "Faith's not doing anyone here a bit of good.  What's that saying?  Faith, hope, and love - - and the greatest of these three is love?"

"Something like that."

"Well, faith's useless, hope's a bitch, and love bites hard."

Greg was right, and Nick knew it.  Not so much about the saying, because Nick had to believe in something, and faith, hope, and love were the best he had, but about the first thing.  About him having been gone too long.  It was true.  He'd left behind a bunch of people who were worried but whole, uncomfortable but solid, and he'd returned to this.  To new bitterness and sharp edges, to the shape of Catherine's hand printed on Greg's cheek, to Sara and Grissom getting what they wanted and finding out that it wasn't enough.

He'd been gone just a few days, but he might as well have stayed away for years.

"You're a cynic now," Nick said, and it wasn't even a question.  "Guess I have missed out on a lot, huh?"

"I'm a lot of things now.  Cynic, screw-up, suspect . . . take your pick."

"No one's made a suspect out of you."

"So sure about that?  Want to bet your job on it?  Oh, hey, better yet, want to bet mine?"  Greg propelled himself upwards and turned to look at Nick.  "The only person here who really believes that I didn't have anything to do with that missing evidence is Sara.  And not to wallow in the self-pity, but she might just be taking my side because she didn't want to be on Catherine's.  They're kind of fighting right now."  Greg pressed his hands against his thighs, leaving white-dust handprints.  "I don't really believe this is happening," he said.  "I mean, we were just eating _pancakes_."

Nick had no idea what Greg was talking about.  Warrick hadn't mentioned anything about pancakes.  He nodded anyway, though.

"I really kind of wish it felt more like a dream," he admitted.

He knew he should add something about how he believed that Greg wasn't the one who had tampered with the evidence, but he couldn't, somehow.  He hadn't even been present for that, and watching Greg right now, he could see that the lab tech looked perfectly capable of screwing it up on accident, he was so frazzled.  And the new, bitter cynicism - - if that had come out _before _the evidence went missing . . . he didn't know.  He couldn't think.

His grandfather used to tell him that most people consistently made the right choices, and his grandmother used to tell him that everyone had their price.  There was always some point where someone would make the selfish choice, or the hurtful choice.  There was always something they wanted so badly that they'd give up everything else just to have it - - just to know it, touch it, taste it . . .

Until this week, he'd thought like his grandfather, but now he wondered if he hadn't been wrong all that time.  What was his price?  What was Greg's?

"Greg," he said hoarsely, "did someone . . . tell you anything?  Offer you something?  Fieldwork, maybe?  Money?"  He thought, _Thirty pieces of silver? _and then, with a pang of horror, realized that he'd said it.  He'd said it out loud, and Greg was recoiling from him, almost crab-walking backwards on the roof in a way that should have been comedic but sickening instead.

Greg stood hastily, brushing dust off his clothes and just succeeding in smearing it around.

"Judas," Greg said flatly.  "You think I'm some kind of _Judas_?"

"I didn't mean - - "

"Hey, Freud, we say what we mean, okay?  You said what you were thinking about.  And _you _- - you were thinking - - you . . ."  Greg bit his lip so hard then that Nick could see a fresh line of blood well up under the white of Greg's teeth.  "You were my friend," Greg said.  "I thought that you . . . I mean, of all _people_, you'd understand.  I'd never do _anything _to mess with Grissom or anyone else here.  I wouldn't ever . . ."

The jetlag, the exhaustion, the pain - - all of it caught up with him at once, in the worst possible way and the worst possible moment.  Greg wasn't even _listening _to him, he'd tried to say that he hadn't meant to imply what he'd implied, but Greg had just gotten so carried away by his saintly act that Nick snapped.

"Sorry to interrupt your martyr scene, Greg," he said, "but this isn't all about you.  Do you want me to hit you or something, like Cath did, so you can just forgive me without another word and go around with a few more bruises?  So everyone knows how perfect you are?  So everyone knows that the rest of us are bad, evil people who just mistreat you and kick you around?"

Greg said, "_I've _got a martyr complex?  Coming from the original white knight, that's kinda funny."

"I'm not going to hit you," Nick said through his teeth, "even though you'd probably get a big kick out of getting to turn the other cheek.  But let me tell you something: you're not a martyr, you're not a sacrifice, and you are _not _perfect.  You're no better than the rest of us."

His head was pounding, his heart was racing, and the adrenaline from the anger was fading away just as quickly as it had come, leaving him feeling hung-over and still so tired.  So hateful, too, all of his frustrations coming out here, on the roof, and he wasn't going to care about whether Greg deserved to take them or not, because he didn't deserve to have this happen to _him_, he didn't deserve to have his life fall apart like this, and Greg didn't get to sit there and act holy when the evidence had been with _him_, for God's sake, been in his own _lab _when it disappeared.

Greg glared at him.  "You sure you don't want to hit me while you're at it, Nick?  'Cause like you said, I'd really like that.  It's just so _awesome_.  I can't imagine why I didn't have more people doing it for longer.  Guess I'm just slow that way, but wow, I've really caught on.  So _hit _me, if you want to, and if I can't be perfect, then you don't get to act like you are, either.  You don't get to act like you're seeing the big picture and know how . . . how _petty _we are."

Nick shook his head, telling himself that he didn't think like that at all, and said coldly, "Go home, Greg.  Just go home."  Some spiteful part of him couldn't help but add, "I don't think there's any evidence left for you to work with here, anyway."

For a second, he thought that Greg was going to hit _him_, but the moment passed, and then it just seemed ridiculous to think how close they had come to killing each other right there on the roof.  Greg nodded without speaking, and Nick let him go by and walk down the stairs.

Where Greg had been lying, the dust was smeared so badly that Nick could see the actual roof under his feet, and he felt unsteady, even so far from the edge, as if the world might suddenly sway enough to throw him off entirely.


	24. Sleep Off

Glad to see that I still have some people with me, and I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the story.  We have this chapter (Catherine), and then a Greg chapter, and that will bring us into part three of the story.  For the record, there are going to be four parts, although the last one will be short, just a two-chapter epilogue where the last of the loose ends come together.

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Chapter Twenty-four: Sleep Off (CATHERINE)

- -

She was almost asleep when Nick called her that night, and if she hadn't been so glad to hear from him, she would've just cursed a blue streak in his ear and made him let her go back to sleep, she was so exhausted.  But it was Nick, and she'd missed him so much in all the craziness, lately, so she rubbed her eyes, leaned her head against the wall, and let him talk.

"It's been a long day, Catherine," he said.

She laughed.  "It's been a long _week_, Nicky.  But I'm sorry you had to come back to all of this.  No fun."

"No fun at all," Nick agreed.  His sigh sounded worn.  "And I probably just made things worse - - I got into a bad fight with Greg.  Said something I didn't mean, and when I tried to take it back, he wouldn't listen.  It wasn't really about him, even, it was just - - everything.  For both of us, I guess.  We both had to blow up somewhere and we ended up blaming each other.  It was messy, though."

"You apologize?"

Nick's voice was a little ashamed.  "Not so much before he left.  I'll call him in the morning - - I swear, Cath, I'm so jetlagged and screwed-up right now that if I try to talk to him again, we'll just get in another fight.  He's probably still pissed at me, and I'm mad at him, too.  We'll both sleep it off."

"Hopefully."  Catherine wished she could just turn her head downwards and sleep a lot of things off.  Maybe pull a Rip Van Winkle and wake up when all of this was over, for better or worse, as long as she didn't have to suffer through it day by day, with all the doubts and fears and temper tantrums that were spreading through them like a bad case of summer flu.

When this was all over, she was going to make things better with Warrick over her slip of tongue at the crime scene, and she was going to apologize again to Greg for hitting him.  She was going to - -

Going to fall asleep on the damn phone, was what she was going to do.

"I think it'll be better in the morning," Nick continued, sounding tiresomely optimistic.  "Especially if we can find that evidence," he added, as if he'd suddenly remembered that there were bigger problems going on than just his spat with Greg.  "What do you think happened to it?"

She closed her eyes and again her hand collided with Greg's cheek.

"I don't know," she said honestly.  "I'm sick of making accusations.  I'm just going to say that I don't know, and really, I'm almost done caring."

"Now, Catherine. . ."

"Nick," she said, "I'm really, really glad that you're home again, and I've missed you.  But right now, I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone debate right and wrong with you over the phone.  Just stick to that things-will-be-better-in-the-morning attitude, and let me get at least eight hours of quality time with this pillow and these sheets."

"Okay.  Sure."

He sounded defeated all of a sudden, and Catherine wondered if she hadn't made a mistake by telling him off, even if she _was _tired.

"Listen, Nick, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that.  I'm just beat."

"I get it," Nick said, but he still sounded strained.  "Hey, trust me, I'm done in, too.  Being tired just makes everyone a little testy.  Or a lot testy.  Or whatever.  Anyway, yeah, I should turn in for the night, too.  Goodnight, Catherine."

She told him goodnight and clicked the phone off, holding it across her chest.  She couldn't shake the feeling that she should've ended that differently, and thought about calling him back, but what would she say, anyway?  _Listen, Nick, I know I've already apologized once for snapping at you, but I should do it again, because our morale around here sucks to begin with and we've got friendships dropping like flies, and at the end of the day, tired or not, I'd still like to have yours_?  Did she really say that?

No.  She was never so open.  Life had taught her early on to show as few cards as possible, and only when it was to her advantage.

This whole situation was just messing with her, that was all.  No wonder she was on edge.  Everyone was dealing with their stress in different ways - - Grissom was drawing even more away from them than he'd been before, Warrick was trying to lead, Greg was formulating conspiracy theories, Nick was arguing with one of his best friends, Sara was finally getting Grissom where she wanted him, and Catherine was alienating people left and right.

_Yeah, call Nick back, for starters, and tell him that, and then call Greg, and then call Warrick and Grissom and Sara and everyone else you've taken your anger out on recently.  And then you can maybe start showing a few more cards and turning over a few new leaves.  Maybe then Warrick would start to love you instead of just seeing you._

But she wasn't a kid anymore, wasn't even Sara's age, and change was difficult.  Sometimes change was almost impossible.  She'd spent the last few years making sure that if someone got hurt, it wasn't going to be her.  She wasn't going to be a martyr for the cause.  She fought back, she survived, she tore her way out tooth and nail, but she didn't really apologize more than once, no matter how much she meant it, and she definitely didn't change.

Not now, anyway.

Catherine set the phone back in the cradle and lay very still in the dark, trying to get back to sleep, but it wasn't working.

_Oh great, _she thought, _on top of everything, I'm going to get insomnia now, too?_

Her eyes felt like they were covered in sand, and every single one of her bones ached.  She could lie there in the silence and count all of them, from the phalanges to the cranium, and describe exactly how the joints were stiff and the muscles around them were sore.  She counted sheep leaping in a pattern over her mirror, but nothing changed.  Exhausted or not, the sleepiness she needed wouldn't come back to her.  Nick's phone call had made her restless.

She went into the kitchen and fixed a peanut butter sandwich and ate it standing up, leaning against the kitchen table, wondering why people always reverted to childish comforts when they were tired.  But it always seemed to work, because by the last bite, the drowsiness was settling over her again like a blanket, thick and obscuring.

She delayed the feeling by heading into Lindsey's room before she collapsed.  Her daughter was curled up in a tight ball under the covers.  Catherine figured that she was probably the one to blame for that, because Eddie had always slept splayed out over the covers, his limbs getting everywhere and tangling with her arms.  Catherine had always wanted to keep herself warm, wrapping her arms around her chest like she was hugging herself, and tucking her chin down, and her legs up.

Lindsey's hair was pale under the nightlight.  It was getting white-blonde instead of gold as she got older, and Catherine ran her fingers through it now, tracing the long, individual strands up to her daughter's scalp.  Sleeping still, Lindsey murmured something, and kicked out a little.

"Easy, sweetheart," Catherine said soothingly, and kissed Lindsey's cheek before she retreated to the doorway again.

And a very touching scene, she was sure.  It might even have been more touching if she hadn't been kissing Lindsey to make up for the fact that she'd barely been home all week, and more touching still if the night visit in itself wasn't just a way to verify that she could still love someone without hurting them.  She could hold up Lindsey as prove that she could love unselfishly, that she could love without bruises and accusations and hurt.

_Doesn't that just make this selfish, too?_

"I'm too tired for this," she whispered into the still of her daughter's room, and she went back to her own (alone), pulled the covers up under her chin, thrashed around until she could find a comfortable position, and fell asleep almost immediately.

The dreams were uneasy, and she was almost grateful when Lindsey woke her up a few hours later by crawling in beside her.  Catherine wrapped her arm around her daughter almost unconsciously.

"Bad dreams?"

"Yeah."  Lindsey snuggled against her, and Catherine felt princess-pink pajamas shift against her silk pajama bottoms.  "Can I sleep in here tonight, Mommy?  Please?"

"Sure, baby." 

Awakening a little more, she blinked until she could see, and fluffed at the spare pillow until Lindsey smiled at her and curled in a little more.  Lindsey used to sleep between her and Eddie, making a temporary piece when things were bad, and she always tried to distribute the affection equally, putting her head against Eddie's chest and throwing her legs up over her mother's.  Catherine noticed the way Lindsey tossed one hand behind her back, as if to reassure an Eddie who was no longer there that she still loved him, too.

Catherine didn't want to cry, not now, and not for Eddie.  If she cried for Eddie now, it would just be an excuse, because it wasn't really Eddie she'd be crying for, just like Nick and Greg weren't really mad at each other but just ticked off about the whole situation in general.

She stroked Lindsey's hair instead.

"You remember what you dreamed?"

Catherine never remembered her own dreams, as if the first light against her eyes penetrated her all the way in and killed any lingering night phantoms with swift, painless ease.

"Yeah," Lindsey said softly, against Catherine's shoulder, "they were all dead."

Catherine couldn't breathe.  She turned so quickly that she felt Lindsey move against her, pulling back, and Catherine said urgently, "What, honey?  What did you say?"  She could hear the raw _fear _in her own voice, and she hated it.

Lindsey looked scared.  "I said it was about dad.  Mommy, don't get angry."

She collapsed down against the sheets, her tense muscles relaxing all at once, and she buried her face in the pillow and breathed deep, tasting cotton on her lips, wondering if she _were _going to cry after all, this time in relief more than anything else.  But her eyes stayed dry, and she pulled back, and hugged Lindsey to her, again stroking her daughter's hair.

"No, sweetie, I'm not angry.  I just - - I thought that you said something else, that's all.  Don't be scared, okay?  I'm sorry.  Mommy's had a long day."

_And a long week, and a long year_, she thought, soothing Lindsey into sleep.  She lay on the sheets with her eyes open for a long time after that, wondering exactly how much of this she could possibly manage to sleep off in one night.  She felt like she could stay under  for eons and still come up feeling unclean.

_They were all dead_, she thought, and shivered.

She reached for the phone again, but didn't call, just held the phone in one hand like a talisman, curled her other arm around her daughter, and eventually slept again.


	25. Saint Peter

Lovely reviews - - thank you so, so much.

Also, I have to insert a plug for Janissa11's "Enmity."  Good characterization, good Nick-centric casefile, and excellent tension.  The suspense is a thing of beauty.

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Chapter Twenty-five: Saint Peter (GREG)

- -

Greg climbed down the stairs and stood at the bottom of the flight for a long minute with his hands knotted behind his neck, as if he were trying to hold his head on straight.  Okay, yeah.  Nick was right about one thing - - he _should _go home.  He'd already wrapped up the rest of his cases, and his helpfulness was probably bordering on annoyance right now.  He held the railing with one hand, unbalanced, and thought: _Grissom would have made me go home hours ago._

Warrick had tried to send him home, but acting supervisor or not, Warrick didn't present the same authority as Grissom did.  Warrick didn't make people desperate for his approval and terrified of his dislike - - Warrick was just Warrick, brave and smart, but so tired.  So exhausted down to his bones.

_I should say goodbye to him, before I go.  It's not his fault.  He's trying._

He found Warrick in the dark A/V lab.  Archie had already left for the night, and Warrick was just sitting in the chair, not operating any of the equipment, not spinning around, not doing _anything_.  Greg was hesitant to approach him, because, for a minute, Warrick actually _was _Grissom - - still and implacable - - but then Warrick turned and gave him a very weary smile, and Greg could see that Warrick was almost to his limits, if not past them.

He said, nervously, "I was just going to take off."

"Good.  That's good," Warrick said.  "Nick convince you to leave?  Good for him."

So that had been why Nick had found him on the roof - - Nick had come up there with a mission: get Greg to go home.  Well, he'd succeeded, but judging by Nick's beaten expression when Greg had passed him to go down the stairs, maybe success was cold comfort.

"Yeah," Greg said.  "He really got through to me."

_"Sorry to interrupt your martyr scene, Greg, but this isn't all about you."_

Warrick didn't say anything, and his eyes looked opaque, as if behind them, there was absolutely nothing else to see or be seen.

Greg said, "Warrick?"

Warrick nodded, blinked, and the closed, empty look was gone.  "Yeah.  Sorry to zone out on you.  Listen, we'll clear this up, okay?  We'll be shooting pool again before you know it.  Actually, all of us will.  You, me, Nick, Sara, Cath - - we'll drag Grissom along, too."

Greg closed his eyes again and saw the black eight ball zoom into his field of vision, rolling into the pocket.  Bad luck, they said.  His lucky rabbit's foot hadn't stopped the evidence from going missing.  When he got home, he was going to toss that worthless piece of trash in the fireplace and light it up.  Have a bonfire of his vanities.

"Sounds fun."

"It will be.  And don't worry.  We're going to solve this."

"I hope you do," Greg said honestly, and in the second he said it, he knew that he believed it.  It didn't matter whether or not he lost his job over the missing evidence or not.  All that mattered was that they solve the case and fix whatever cataclysmic _wrong_ had set off the last week, and Greg would take his unemployment slip without a whimper.

"Why don't you go home, too?"

Warrick shrugged.  "I don't know.  I should.  Dayshift's going to be arriving in just a few hours, and I don't want them gawking at me.  Guess I just feel more useful here, even if I can't really do anything.  Maybe something will turn up."

"Okay," Greg said, accepting that, and then granted Warrick the benefit of the doubt with, "You're the boss, man."

Warrick's eyes were a little sharper when he looked at Greg.  "Your lip's bleeding."

"I know.  I bit it.  Thus is the bloodshed that stems from having perfectly even teeth."  He pulled his lower lip inwards and licked at it.  "I feel like a vampire.  Blood tastes nasty, anyway."  He sighed, shook his head.  "I'll see you in the morning.  Cool?"

"Cool," Warrick said, and patted him on the shoulder.  "Get some sleep."

"Like to.  I'm almost down on my feet here.  Night, Warrick."

Warrick nodded at him, and Greg slid out the door, double-checking for Nick in the halls.  If he saw Nick now, he might (_might_) apologize for saying what he said about Nick's white-knight complex.  Assuming, of course, that Nick appeared ready to apologize about the martyr complex comment.  Forget the Judas thing, Greg wasn't going to and couldn't forgive him for that anytime soon.  It didn't really matter if Nick had meant to say it or not, Nick had _thought _it, and now he had a bleeding lip and a bruise on his cheek, and maybe one person on his side.

Sara believed him because Sara didn't want to accuse anyone, and if Warrick believed him, Warrick was just believing him to hold on to whatever sanity he had left.  Catherine was covering up disbelief with pretty words, and Nick - - that was what hurt the most.  Nick was the one he had counted on, Nick was the one he could've pointed at and said, "Okay, sure, maybe the rest of them, but Nick likes me, Nick understands me, and Nick would realize that I'd never do anything like that on purpose _or _on accident, because Nick knows what it's like to want to impress Grissom and Nick . . ."

_Is my friend, dammit.  Or was.  Or something.  I hate this._

"Sanders."

He ran a hand over his face.  "Hodges.  What is it?"

Hodges looked nervous, almost anxious.  "I heard about Catherine.  Sorry."

He almost laughed, but he bit the inside of his cheek.  Sad day when Hodges was the one who believed him instead of Nick, when Hodges offered sympathy and Catherine offered blows.  Sad day.  Then again, it really _had _been a sad day.

"Thanks," he said, and again, "thanks."

"You didn't lose that evidence," Hodges said.  "Everyone knows that, and if they don't, they'll figure it out."  A beat.  "Do you know if Grissom's coming back?"

"No.  I don't."

"Maybe it would be better if he'd leave," Hodges said, and the tone of his voice implied that this was more than just a "maybe" scenario.  "At least for a while.  Give things a chance to cool off, you know?"

"I don't know," Greg said.  He was trying to be polite because he could hardly afford to lose people who believed that he _wasn't _trying to frame Grissom, but his patience was wearing thin.  He wanted Grissom back, and sooner rather than later, wanted Grissom back because Grissom had a tendency to keep things sane instead of letting them go like this.  "Maybe that's true," he lied, and tucked his hands in his pockets.  "Maybe he should."

"Are you coming back in tomorrow?" Hodges asked.

"Until they fire me, yeah."  And that would be sooner rather than later, too.

Hodges blinked at him, as if he hadn't thought of that scenario at all, and Greg wasted empty minutes by imagining Hodges as a fish, swimming behind glass walls and just gulping at him.  Big shiny goldfish eyes and sleek scales, a lab-coat fantail, and an open-shut mouth with words coming out like glistening bubbles, hanging in the aqua around him until they popped with a quiet pinching sound.

"Leaving?"

"Yeah.  You?"

Hodges said, "I'm staying into dayshift.  Special favors, extra cash."

"Good deal," Greg said.  He'd done it a few times himself.  Ecklie might hate the night-shift but he _did _love their expertise.  He said, awkwardly, "See you," and then, because he had to tack on something at the end of such a strange conversation, he told Hodges that they could have lunch tomorrow or something, assuming Greg still had both his job and his sanity.

Hodges nodded at him, fish-style, and Greg headed out into the parking lot, a swish of cooler air surrounding him, and chilling him so much that felt like he could see steam pouring off his skin.

His car was near the wall, barely lit by the building's lights.

_This has been one weird day.  Very painful, and very nasty, but mostly, very, very weird._

"Lizzie Zimmer can bite me," he said as he dug through his pockets for the keys, feeling childish and snappish but no less indignant.  "Good riddance.  I mean, how do you manage to screw _that _many people over just by getting killed?"

"Good question.  She's a little far gone to answer it, though."

He turned around, his keys jumping from his hand and clattering against the pavement.  He knelt, hands against the cooling asphalt, and sent his fingers searching for them.  Better to find the keys and peel out of here than see what this guy wanted.  He just wanted to go home.  Just wanted - - keys.  Yeah.  One fingertip had caught against a serrated metal edge, and he went down, belly flat, on the ground, stretching his arm a little further and - -

A hand was on his other wrist, twisting it behind his back.  It gave a splintery sound, a cracking sound, like stepping on a dry twig.  It made him flash on winters in New York, with the frozen scrim of ice and snow covering up the dying grass, crunching whenever his feet touched it.  The frost hiding an untouched layer of twigs and soda cans like they were buried treasure.  He barely registered the white-hot knot of pain that formed around his bone, he was too blinded by the _surprise _of it: how could this be happening, anyway?  When his arm was freed again to drop and hang, loose and broken, he thought, _Spiral fracture.  It's not a clean break._  He diagrammed it in his mind, fitted it with the searing pain his arm was taking on, and then, _then_ he screamed.

His lips against the asphalt, he screamed, his lips scraping open even more on the grit and dirt, and a hand hauled him upwards and hit him hard in the mouth.  His jaw snapped to the side - - not broken, just thrown out of place - - and then gloved fingers pressed over him.  He screamed without sound.

"Look at you.  You cry prettier than I thought you would."

_I'm crying? _he thought, bewildered, as another hot tear slid down his cheek.

A fist traced it, and that was a different sound from the arm altogether.  It flattened and shattered under the harsh collision, and the pain was far more intense.  He had only an instant before his nerve endings started screaming, and he was so confused that his only reaction was, _Aw, man, that's NEVER gonna heal right!  _Then he was pressing his hand to his face, and he could hear himself making strange, howling noises, like the cries of some kind of wounded animal.

The man bent over him, and Greg kicked outwards with both feet, hoping to land some kind of blow, _any _kind of blow, didn't matter what, but he hit nothing.  Just air, swishing around his ankles and battered tennis shoes, and he heard a horribly friendly laugh.

The man looked . . . wholesome.  All-American.  Yellow-haired and friendly, wearing a slightly overextended grin and a few drops of Greg's blood on his cheek.

Then he started talking, and his voice was the same way, smooth and warm, almost encouraging.  The kind of guy that made you want to be his friend, except his hands were pinning Greg against the stucco wall of the crime lab, and what he was saying killed any kindness in his voice.

"I overheard you and your friend on the roof.  He said you wanted to be a martyr, and you said he wanted to be a hero.  A little silly of him, isn't it?"

The man was holding a nail - - actually, it was a little overlarge for a nail.  More like a spike.  Greg wasn't sure of the terminology.  His eyes fixed on its silvery shine.

"This isn't a time for heroes anymore," the nice-looking man continued.  "It's not a great time for martyrs, either, but being a martyr is just so much _easier_.  A martyr is the poor man's hero, just because it takes so little effort.  All you have to do," the nail slipping from hand to hand like some kind of conjuror's trick, drifting near Greg's neck just has he had opened his mouth again to scream, "is die for your cause."

The nail slid over his skin.  "I wouldn't make any noise, if I were you."

All that came out was a whisper.  His jaw hurt.

_Thirty pieces of silver.  Thirty pieces of silver.  And a silver nail.  What's the cost?  What did I do?_

"Besides, heroes get forgotten over time.  All those courageous people you read about are only a tenth of all the people who have done what's right and saved the day.  They've just been swept under the rug.  Now, martyrs - - martyrs are different.  People still pray to martyrs.  Well, the Catholics do, anyway."

A slight pause.  A hesitation.  The skidding, scabbing pain of metal over his neck, tracing a path in stitches up his throat, skimming over the jugular to graze bare flesh.  The man tilted Greg's chin upwards, forcing him to look, to _see_.  He was still wearing that self-assured smile, the one that reminded Greg of Nick's, except now the smile seemed almost wolfish, not as friendly as it was before.

"Your _boss_ is a Catholic, isn't he?  Or used to be.  My grandfather used to say that there was no such thing as a lapsed Catholic, that they all still did confession in their hearts.  I bet he still remembers his Bible stories, his saints.  You know Saint Peter, right?  He didn't want to die like the son of God, because he knew he could never be so great as that.  They crucified him upside-down, but they _do_ say that he went to heaven."

The man laughed.  If his smile had changed, the laugh was still perfect.  It was still the kind of laugh that made people want to join in.  He traced the nail up Greg's cheekbone, through the raw and still-open wound.  He said, softly:

"Do you think that you'll go to heaven?  You're really more of a saint than a savior, aren't you?"

He hit Greg again, this time in the stomach, and Greg heard a rib crack before he felt it.  And then he waited for the new pain to set in and deepen.  He wasn't processing.  He was barely breathing.  The only thing he was thinking was to dimly wonder if this was shock, and if it was, he'd gotten a raw deal, because he would've preferred adrenaline - - the kind of rush that could have given him more strength to fight back instead of the dreamy, distant connections his mind was making between broken bones and a New York winter.

And silver.  Thirty pieces of silver and a single silver nail.

"I know what you want," the man said.  "But you don't know who I am."  He tapped his chin, and his bloody finger left moon-shaped patterns there, like oversized chicken pox.  "Would this help?"

From his coat, he produced a rose.  A white rose.  It was new, fresh, and absurdly lovely in its own way.  Greg's mind found the connection and made it.

He said, "Flowers.  Matthew Flowers."

Flowers beamed at him.  "Good job.  Guess you are smart.  Can you tell me why you have to die, then?  Because I wasn't really told - - he doesn't say much about his reasons."

And _there _was the adrenaline he was looking for.  His mind cleared, or at least _lifted_, so that the pain was on a different level, far beneath him.  He was back on the roof again, only this time, it was just him and Flowers, not Nick, but it still all came down to a question of who could hurt who more.  His shoulders were pinned against the wall, but his legs were free, and Flowers was standing over him.

He kicked upwards, hoping to nail the bastard right in the balls, but Flowers shifted his weight at the last minute and Greg's foot slammed against his thigh.  Flowers snarled at him, all semblance of goodness gone, and hit him again.  The face.  The shoulder.  The stomach.  His legs, the force uncurling taut muscles until Greg's scream grew louder, heightening on and on until there was nothing left in his throat but scratchy pain, and he screamed anyway, first wordless screams and then noiseless screams, howls of nothingness.

He thought: _But someone's going to save me.  Someone's going to see that I'm here and they'll save me, even though I can't move anymore, they'll get me.  Because that's the way things work out.  Someone _has _to stop this, because I didn't do anything wrong._

There was a telephone pole at the end of the parking lot, and, on the ground next to it, a piece of plywood.  Flowers dragged him there.  Greg's skin scraped against the asphalt, and he heard his shirt tear along with his skin.  Flowers kept a firm grip on his ankles.

"By the pricking of my thumbs," Flowers said softly, "something wicked this way comes.  And that, I suppose, is your bad luck.  Although you must have done _something_.  There has to be some reason why Gil Grissom would want to kill you, otherwise it wouldn't be plausible to assume that he would be a suspect in your murder.  Though I suspect that his Catholic heritage won't go over well, not when they see how you die.  St. Peter," he added mildly, "remember?"

_But Peter chose his death, and I don't choose this.  I can't choose this.  I just want to be home, watching _Twilight Zone _and heating up leftover spaghetti.  I just want to sleep.  I just want to have pancakes with Grissom and Sara again (eat this in remembrance of Me) and tease Grissom about how obscenely gross it is to drink grape juice (the blood of Christ, drink this in remembrance of Me).  I just want_

_(salvation)_

_(hope)_

_(forgiveness)_

_(peace)_

_things to be back to normal._

Blood and tears were streaking down his face, sticky and wet.

His vision was turning silver, a blinding light stretching across his eyes.  He always thought things would fade to black, but they only seemed to be getting brighter.  It was like drowning, falling instead of rising, his breathing becoming more difficult, as if the air wasn't air at all but some thick, syrupy liquid, something that made filtering oxygen into his lungs difficult-to-impossible.

Flowers touched his cheek.  "How does it feel?"  Like a doctor, surveying a patient.

He tried to answer.  _Sweet, _he thought.  _Painful.  Drowsy._  All that came out was a whispering noise, and Flowers shook his head in disappointment.

"Unfortunate," Flower said, "because I always wondered, and you're the first person to stay conscious long enough for me to ask."

He felt his arms being spread, his body lifted.  His broken wrist dangled in the air, swollen and knotted, like a clump of driftwood.  Whatever blood he had left rushed into his head, dizzying him.  The nerves in his ankles tingled as Flowers tied them to the telephone pole.

_They crucified Saint Peter upside-down.  He was a disciple.  A martyr.  A saint._

Greg was sure there was a Saint Gregory, but he wasn't going to live long enough to ask Grissom what happened to _that _particular guy.  Flowers was holding his wrists, spread-eagling them like Greg was getting ready to embrace all of Las Vegas, with its plastic prettiness, neon stars, and wise and brilliant criminalists that hadn't been able to save him when it really, really counted.  Someone had paid thirty pieces of silver to bring Grissom down, and Greg was going to die because of a side-note.

_Silver and gold, _he thought disjointedly as the nail pierced his hand.  _I'm sorry for yelling at you, Nick._

He died that way in the parking lot, his feet bound above his head and his hands nailed to plywood attached to a telephone pole, his head downwards so that his own blood ran from the wounds on his chest and dripped into his eyes.  He died thinking about Grissom, his own mind working against him, misfiring synapses until he was at that diner again, eating pancakes and feeling nervous but happy, with the worst still ahead of him and seeing a butterfly-slim chance of hope in the distance.  He died with his mouth open, struggling to breathe, his arms pinned and his feet tied, he died bleeding and hurting, the only solid thing in his vision a white rose, floating in and out of the diner like a mirage he could not quite touch.


	26. Full of Sound and Fury

My sincere thanks goes to all of you who kept reading after the last chapter - - I was halfway expecting to be lynched, not praised, and your response really astounded me.  Suffice to say, you make all the struggles worthwhile.  Oh, and also, I _did _warn you, remember?  grin

Part Three: Ashes, Ashes

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre_

_The falcon cannot hear the falconer;_

_Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;_

_Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world._

- - W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"

- -

Chapter Twenty-six: Full of Sound and Fury (WARRICK)

- -

Warrick dreamed he was trying to tell Grissom about the missing evidence, but Grissom kept dismissing him, wiping away his concerns with a swift cut of the hand.  _A tale told by an idiot, Warrick - - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  _Warrick pressed him, saying that it was important, and that Grissom should come in and take charge again, because he didn't have a clue how to get things running again.  Grissom smiled at him, and said:

_[crucified]_

Warrick put a hand over his ear and asked Grissom to come closer, he couldn't hear.  Grissom stepped a little nearer to him and took both Warrick's hands, spreading them out until Warrick was in the proper position to be searched, his arms straight out from his shoulders.

_[oh God I don't believe it]_

_[crucify]_

_[wake him up someone should wake him]_

No, Warrick said, stop talking like that, I don't understand.  That's not your voice.

Grissom said, _[the rose]_

_[what if Grissom I mean not that I think but what if]_

_[Warrick]_

_[Warrick wake up oh Greg oh God Warrick]_

Grissom moved his hands to Warrick's shoulders and shook him, hard.  Warrick pushed him back, but his hands only brushed off the surface of Grissom's shirt, as if the fabric were covered in some slick oil, making his fingertips glide away without touching.  Grissom shook his head, his eyes distant, turning from their usual pale blue to a sheer white color, shining and then splitting, giving way to nothing but a mind-numbingly bright light - -

_Light._

Florescent bulbs, gleaming.  The white light dimmed long enough for him to make out the shapes of figures around him, surrounding him, in fact, their hands outstretched to pull him upright, to show him, to touch him as if he were some kind of anchor or lucky figurine instead of just Warrick Brown.  His vision sharpened more - - lab coats, familiar faces.  He counted Jacqui and Bobby among them, the rest seemed to be dayshift, vaguely recognizable but still unknown.

Jacqui was the one directly in front of him, the one who had shaken him awake.  Her dark eyes were wet, and it took him a second to see the tearstains on her cheeks.

He sat up, the entire right side of his face aching, feeling almost bruised from where he must have fallen asleep at the break room table.  "Jacqui - - what?"

Jacqui tried to say something, but her words dissolved into a sob.  She screwed her eyes shut, her mouth open, gasping for air, and grabbed at Bobby Dawson, who looked bewildered, as if he had no idea where he was.  He touched her arm anyway, his own mouth forming words, but no sound coming out, just meaningless shapes.  Warrick couldn't read lips.

"Can anyone tell me what's going on?"

Jacqui brushed tears off her face, and they fell against Warrick's shirt.  "It - - it's Greg.  We were going out for breakfast - - Bobby . . ."

"Breakfast," Bobby agreed, still looking dazed.  "He - - it," he added senselessly.  "The edge of the parking lot, on a telephone pole."

"The body," Jacqui said.  She still didn't appear to be calm, but her features had turned almost stony.  Whatever she had to say, she was _going _to say it - - going to get it out in the open.  "We found Greg's body in the parking lot."

Warrick shook his head, because that was impossible.  "Greg went home hours ago.  I mean, he still should've left before, but Nick convinced him.  He's home."

"He's dead," Bobby said, and Warrick saw several of the background techs nod in agreement.  Bobby gave a sudden, hysterical laugh.  "He - - somebody _strung him up_ on that thing like he was Jesus or something . . . they nailed his hands . . ."

Jacqui said, softly, "It was a crucifixion, Warrick."

But they were wrong, of course.  Greg wasn't dead.  Hurt, maybe, and maybe they'd get there just in time to save him, but he wasn't _dead_.  Dead was permanent.  No one could fix dead.  Crucified or not, Greg wasn't going to come back to life, so he wasn't dead.  That would be just - - unacceptable.  An _offense_.  Things like death didn't happen to people like Greg.

"The parking lot?"

He was already walking to the doors, and he could feel Jacqui trailing behind him, but she was the only one.  Apparently just one sight of - - whatever was out there - - had been enough for most of them.  He pushed through the double doors, his hands flat against the glass.  Air swished around him, and he reached behind him to grab Jacqui's wrist and pull her to his side.

"Show me where," he said hoarsely.

"East lot," she said.  "The one facing the desert.  I guess - - I guess that's why no one saw it before this morning.  The other lots face the Strip, and someone could've - -"

He didn't listen, just switched her off as he walked towards the east parking lot, and when he started to see the wide shadow of the telephone pole, with an unfamiliar shape attached to it, he broke into a run.  His feet slapped against the asphalt, his eyes almost closed so that he couldn't really see what he was running towards until he was there.  He stopped so quickly at the edge of the pavement that the smooth soles of his shoes squeaked, even on the grit, and rolled him forwards, his hands outstretched.

His usual balance didn't save him - - he fell face forward, half his body landing on the asphalt and his upper torso dropping into the hot sand.  His face burned, and he breathed in dirt, tasting the crisp sand between his teeth.  It crunched there as he stood and turned, waves of dust falling from the front of his shirt and onto the pavement in a glittery wave.

It was Greg.  And he was dead.

Not just dead, but Jacqui was right - - _crucified_.  Warrick didn't even recognize him at first, despite all those years of working together, and those occasional nights of playing pool in yellow-lit halls that smelled like beer and sweat.  He was eye-level with Greg's feet, and for a second, it was all he could see - - just worn sneakers with rubber caps and unraveling shoelaces.  Then his eyes traveled down, over worn denims and one of those hideous shirts - - vertical stripes of lime and violet.  The shirt had been abused by gravity - - falling down towards Greg's chin, revealing his bare and bloodied stomach.  Warrick counted three broken ribs before he could see the rest of Greg's face.

He said something, but he wasn't sure what.  A prayer, a curse?  Or maybe just a noise, a wordless whisper that just slid out as Warrick fell for the second time - - dropping down to his knees, putting Greg's face into better view.

Catherine's bruise was still there, he could see, but it was obscured by other, fresher bruises and a sticky maroon layer of blood.  It was almost enough to make his face unidentifiable, but the blood couldn't hide his features or the open, staring hazel eyes, looking somewhat accusingly at Warrick.  Not peaceful at all.  Warrick had never really seen a dead body that looked peaceful.  Greg's sandy hair was starched with blood, and lying in matted tangles against the ground.  A night wind had sent sand over him, mixing in with the blood like glitter.  Shimmer and shine.

A white rose was threaded through the gap between the plywood and the telephone pole.

Behind him, he heard the desperate coughing sounds of Jacqui throwing up.  He felt his own stomach shift, and he wished that he _would _throw up or cry or _something_, _anything_ - - but his eyes stayed dry and the initial wave of nausea passed.  He had too many years of training, had seen too many decompositions for a recent death to make him queasy, however messy it was, and he'd spent too long trying to be Grissom to cry: his emotions were like strangers in his head.  They moved through him, sobbing, or just standing motionless in shock, and he watched them, and felt for them, but he wasn't them.

He envied them, though.

He said to Jacqui, "Get Dr. Robbins."

"He - - he's home," she said faintly.  "The dayshift coroner - -"

"I don't care about the dayshift coroner."  He was aware that he was almost shouting, his voice unnaturally shrill.  "_Get Dr. Robbins_.  I don't care if you have to wake him up.  I don't care if you have to go to his house and drag him here - - _get him_.  _Now_."

"Yes, sir," Jacqui said, and she took off towards the lab.

Warrick didn't know how long he waited there beside Greg's body.  He was still on his knees, but he had fallen back to rest his weight against his heels.  He tried to trace the strange whistling noise he could hear, and eventually realized that it was his own breath, high-pitched and painful, sliding between his clenched teeth.  The voices he'd heard - - not Grissom.  They had come from outside his dreams, just permeating through.  Crucified.

And then, hauntingly, the one that kept recurring to his memory:

_[what if Grissom I mean not that I think but what if]_

The way it was presented - - so similar to Catherine's slip of tongue - - just beginning with a simple question, and then the speaker had realized what they were saying, and hastily added that they didn't _really _think that, of course, not _really_.  They didn't _really _believe that the man that had been their boss for the last five years was capable of not just killing one of their own but killing him like this - - stringing him up cruciform with his head turned towards the ground . . . not _really_, but still - - what if?

Warrick guessed that they had made the connection that was just waiting to be made: that Grissom had heard, somehow, about the missing evidence and blamed Greg for it.  That Grissom had done this to Greg because he had heard.

_But that's impossible, what if or no what if, because they don't know that Grissom never heard about the missing evidence.  It hasn't been in any of the press releases and I warned everyone about the consequences of telling him. Consequences, _he thought sickly, staring at Greg.  He reached out, watching his hand tremble in the air, and almost brushed his fingers over Greg's bloody face, but he yanked his whole arm back with such force that his body raked over his heels and he tumbled back until he was just sitting on the asphalt.

He couldn't touch Greg.  Not until Robbins got there.

So he talked instead, first unsteadily and then with growing strength in his voice.  "I don't know how this happened, Greg.  We'll find out, though.  I promise.  If we don't find out anything else over the years - - if your case is the only we ever get - - we'll figure out who did this to you.  We'll find them, and we'll - -"  He stopped himself from satisfying the heat in his mind - - he couldn't say _kill them_, even though he wanted to, so badly.  "We'll get them.  And - - and you were right."

He wanted to say, "I trusted you," but it was too late for that, too painfully late, so he fell silent.

He didn't jump when Robbins put a hand on his shoulder.  "I'm sorry, Warrick.  I came as soon as I could," the doctor said.

Warrick turned his head and stood.  Robbins did look a little rumpled, as if Jacqui had had to roll him out of bed and toss him in a car after all.  Robbins's eyes settled on Greg, and his mouth became a thin line, pressing out the wrinkles that had accumulated at the corners over the years from his frequent smiles.  He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, Warrick could see the older man's grief stamped there, indelible and sickly.

"I didn't want to believe this," Robbins said finally.

"Yeah," Warrick said, glancing back at the body.  "Me neither.  I - - I'm sorry to have you dragged in like this, but I wanted our people on this - - "

"Don't apologize."  Robbins knelt by the telephone pole, his knees popping audibly.  "I'd have handed in my resignation the next day if you _hadn't _had me called in."  He pulled one of the meat thermometers out of his black bag, and, after a slight hesitation, put his hand on Greg's stomach and pushed the slim metal monitor inside, straight through the battered skin.

Robbins waited until the numbers stopped climbing, and removed the thermometer.  He handed Warrick a small tape-recorder.

"Hold this," he said, "and press record.  I want to get some of this on the record before I take him in for an autopsy."

Warrick did as he was told, and listened to Robbins narrate.

"Victim temperature indicates that his death took place approximately three to five hours ago, factoring in the heat off the desert.  Victim has bruising along the face and torso - - a shattered cheekbone, approximately three broken ribs.  Other bruising.  No definitive defensive wounds on his palms that I can see, but they're scratched, probably from breaking a fall.  Bruising around his wrists indicates that he was held down or restrained in some way - - I'll see if we can measure the grip size back in the lab."

Robbins paused, took a long breath, and continued.

"Victim - - the victim has been crucified.  Nails through the center of each hand, connecting him to a strip of plywood - - and his feet bound to the telephone pole.  Victim is upside-down, for some indeterminate reason."  He nodded at Warrick, who clicked the recorder off.

"I didn't know Greg well, but I did know him," Robbins said quietly.  "He used to come by to see autopsies - - said he was trying to be certified as a CSI.  He always seemed like a genuinely nice young man."  Robbins shook his head.  "I'll get to work on him right away."

He used Warrick's cell-phone to call for assistants so he could move Greg into the morgue, and Warrick dialed up personnel's dispatch center.

"How many I help you?" the polite voice asked.

"This is Warrick Brown, night-shift CSI acting-supervisor, and you can help me by calling in the rest of my team.  Everyone, not just the criminalists.  I want ballistics, fingerprinting, trace - - anyone that works the graveyard shift, I want them _here_, immediately."

The polite voice metamorphosed, growing simultaneously worried and belligerent.

"Sir, that's just not possible - - it's against protocol - -"

"I don't give a _shit_ about protocol."  His hand was so tight around the phone that he thought it might just break between his fingers.  "Get them here, and call up Gil Grissom.  Tell him to come in immediately.  We're - - we're going to need him for questioning."

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that, sir."

Warrick slammed the phone shut, disconnecting her, and called them up himself, one after another, breaking them with the news over the phone, listening to hesitations and abrupt sobs, dodging questions and giving a few reluctant answers.  The message was simple: Greg was dead.  He didn't care if they were tired or not.  They were coming in to work the case.  He didn't know if Greg's murder was connected to Lizzie Zimmer's death or not.  They shouldn't talk to the press.

He called the last tech before he started calling the more familiar members of his team - - just because he couldn't bear right then to hear the shock in their voices, the desperation.  He searched through his phone's memory for David Hodges's number, and, finding it, dialed.  The phone rang twice before Hodges answered, sounding groggy.

"Hodges.  Warrick Brown.  I need you to come in to the lab immediately."

There was a strange, panicky tone in Hodges's voice - - "What?  Why?"

Warrick forced the words out through his mouth, hating to say them, hating that this hadn't gotten any easier over the series of phone calls.  "Greg Sanders is dead.  We need all hands on deck, and I need you to check for trace on a white rose we found at the scene, not to mention some other - - items," he finished lamely, thinking of the plywood but unable to say it.

"Sanders isn't _dead_," Hodges said, as if suggesting that Greg might just be on vacation.  "He can't be _dead_.  That's not true."

"I did the identification myself."

"He's not _dead_," Hodges insisted with that same wavering hysteria.  "That's impossible.  _Sanders isn't dead_.  That - -"  There was a shift in his tone, and Warrick could almost _hear _Hodges's thoughts whirring through the connection.  "The - - I heard about the missing evidence, is this because - - did . . . is this because of the evidence?  Because it went missing?"

"I don't know."  Warrick pressed his hand to his forehead.  "Can you come in?"

"Sure.  Of course.  I'll be there in under an hour."  Hodges hung up quickly, and Warrick closed his own phone before opening it up once again, and dialed Catherine's number.


	27. Little Boxes

Clearing up a few things that I've missed:

Yes, technically I don't think Robbins could have knelt down.  I missed that.  They don't do much with his prosthetic leg on the show, and it tends to slip my mind.

Regarding the upside-down-crucifixion: I'm Protestant, not Catholic, and while the story of Peter is pretty well-known in the church, I doubt that too many people who hadn't been to church or studied religion would have heard of it - - and no, people aren't usually required to study Christianity in the U.S.

Thanks for all of your reviews - - really, really appreciated.  Grissom chapter, then Nick's next.

- -

Chapter Twenty-seven: Little Boxes (GRISSOM)

- -

Interrogation rooms were like little boxes, opening one after another, each with their own surprise.

Nameless techs who went over his clothing with Luminol and ultraviolet lights.  Others, who wanted scrapings from underneath his fingernails.  As eerie as they were, Grissom felt safer in the boxes than he did in the halls.  Passing between rooms, he saw the glances as detectives crossed their path, the slight side-step that they would do so their feet would carry them a little further away from Grissom.  He had been through these rooms before as a suspect when Lizzie was murdered, and even one, earlier, when her accusation had first come to their attention, but he had never been rushed through so many, never been checked so thoroughly, and never been told so little.  He was given only apologies when he asked at first, and as he grew more persistent, his accompanying officer asked if Grissom were sure he wanted to continue his cooperation.  Grissom said yes, and at last grew silent, just letting them work around him and on him, orchestrating his motions through the labyrinth of little rooms.

There were no answers for him; no explanations.  It was as if there were none at all to be given.  He assumed that this was part of the ongoing investigation in Lizzie's death, but he couldn't understand the sudden chill in everyone's mannerisms, let alone the disgust and fear mixed with it.  Lizzie had been dead two days, and unless the knowledge had just been made public, things should not have changed so drastically overnight.

He didn't know that Greg was dead until Brass, in the last of the little rooms, told him.

His reaction was nothing but unadulterated shock.  Grief would probably come later, but for the moment, all he could think about was how impossible that seemed, but the reality around him continued to move and make sense, even without Greg.  The table was solid under his hands, the metal still offering a smeary reflection of his face.  Brass looked unnerved and stricken - - all natural reactions.  Grissom searched desperately for something out of the ordinary, eager to point towards it and use it as proof that this was just a dream, but he found nothing.

Clinically, looking down at the dull reflective surface of the metal table, he watched his own expression change from shocked to sorrowful.

"How?"

"According to the doc, blood loss got him before anything else, but it was like one of those stories about a man in a burning house.  You know the ones."

Grissom knew.  Man runs into his burning house, breathing smoke all the way.  He catches fire midway through his run, and then the house falls on him.  The cause of death is a mystery.  He didn't like the implication directed at Greg, so he pressed further, hoping for a more gentle clarification.

"What were the other factors?"

Brass's face crinkled, the lines becoming deeper.  "We've been avoiding this discussion all morning, Gil, but I should have guessed that you'd make us talk about it.  All right."  He cupped a hand over his cheek, in a strangely childish gesture, as if to muffle his words, pointing them only at Grissom.  "It happened in the lab parking lot."  Brass pulled a sheet of laminated paper from a manila folder, stamped with a round seal that Grissom recognized instantly: a coroner's report.

Brass reeled off a list of injuries until Grissom was dizzy, his head aching with sympathy for Greg, and the gnawing grief starting to set in on him.  Greg.  It didn't make sense for Greg to be dead, let alone murdered, that was just not the kind of thing that happened in an orderly and logical world.  Greg wasn't a child, despite Grissom's tendency to see him that way, but Greg _was _young - - and that youth was coupled with a kind of innate innocence that made him seem even younger than he was.

Had _made him seem, _Grissom thought, sickened.  _All past tense._

"Bruising around the ankles," Brass continued, winding down, "and - - the pierced wounds in his hands."

Grissom blinked, trying to clear away the vision of Greg holding grape juice and grinning.  "Wounds in his hands?  What kind?"

"He was crucified," Brass said weakly.  "Hung upside down from a - - a makeshift cross.  Telephone pole and plywood.  Nails through his hand, and his feet tied.  Do you know what that means?  Is there any reason for it?"

He told Brass about Saint Peter.

"Guess someone just cast you as Jesus, then," Brass said.

Grissom stared at the table, waiting to see what his reaction would be.  He had none.  He was still taunted by the pictures in his head of Greg, flashing back and forth between the bright, effervescent young man with coffee and conspiracy theories to an imagined figure, cruciform, tied and nailed.  His throat felt swollen, as if talking would be hard, but the words kept coming out, almost of their own volition.

"Was there a rose?"

Brass blinked, and pulled a photo out the folder and tossed it at Grissom.

It was the same white rose he had expected.  The petals looked heavy, almost glossed.  A J. F. Kennedy rose - - complete with a waxy white blossom and all the inherent symbolism of death.  Grissom turned the photo in his hands, rotating it until he got a clear idea of where they had found the rose.  It looked almost _planted _in the wood - - the killer had slid it through the gap between plywood and telephone pole.  One of the petals had a drop of blood on it like dew.  Grissom turned the photo over before handing it back.

"You want to tell me about the rose?"

"I didn't leave it there," Grissom said, leaning forward to look earnestly at Brass.  "I would never have hurt Greg - - and I would _not _have _killed _him."

Brass avoided his gaze.  "That's not what's suggested in these reports.  Several witnesses in your lab stated that you used him as part of an experiment without his express consent - - something about a mildew infection.  They also cite occasions in which you were - - verbally abusive.  Hostile."

"The experiment," Grissom said, his voice growing louder, "was two years ago, and it was part of an ongoing investigation."

"And the hostility?"

"I don't appreciate this interrogation, Jim.  You know as well as I do that this has been blown out all proportions.  I've argued with Greg, yes, and I've said some things that I regret . . . especially now . . . but it was rudeness, not hostility.  He is - - was - - an exceptional DNA tech on his way to becoming an exceptional CSI.  He was a goodhearted kid with a great sense of humor, and he was the only one to see what was coming before it got here."

"What do you mean?"

Grissom closed his eyes, shutting out Brass.  "He tried to tell me that something was wrong.  He called me the day after all this started to tell me that he had a bad feeling that - - that someone was trying to set me up.  I told him that he was being paranoid."

"Did you have any further contact with the victim after that phone call?"

"Please don't call him 'the victim'," Grissom said, and added, "Yes.  Yes.  I saw him a few times at the lab, and the three of us went out for pancakes the night Warrick and Catherine did the press interview."

"Three?"

"Greg, Sara, and I."

Brass nodded.  If he wasn't openly sympathizing with Grissom, some glimmer of it came through in his eyes, and Grissom nodded back, getting it.  Brass had to treat him like a suspect.  They didn't have a choice in that matter.

"Was there anything else?  Any other meetings?"

"No.  I - - he left the diner early that night.  He didn't look like he was feeling well.  And after that, I went home myself.  I didn't come into the lab after Lizzie died.  No - - I haven't talked to him since we had dinner."  Grissom laughed suddenly, hating the rough, scratchy way it came out of his throat.  "I told him that it wasn't his problem.  That it was _my _problem."

"I don't get it, Gil."

"He died," Grissom said softly, "because of _my _problem.  I didn't kill him, but it's still my fault."

"God, Gil," Brass said, shaking his head.  He started to say something, but then stopped.  "That's all for right now.  We don't have any evidence to tie you to the crime."

"I want to see him."

"Warrick?  Yeah, we could do that."

"Warrick, yeah, but later.  I want to see _Greg_."

"That's not a good idea."

"I don't care if it's a good idea or not.  You can't really stop me from seeing him, not legally.  I may be a suspect, but I'm also listed as one of his emergency contacts, and don't you think that getting _killed _is enough of an emergency to let me in there, then nothing is.  I want to see what someone did to him."  He was surprised by the grim intensity he heard in his own voice.  It was what he'd heard so often before when he'd tried to talk to the families of victims - - the darkness that urged people on towards vigilante justice.  "Let me in."

"You're listed as an emergency contact," Brass said, "but Nick Stokes is listed as the primary, and he hasn't gotten here yet.  Warrick's calling him, but he wants the team together before he breaks the bad news.  Legally, Nicky's allowed to see Greg before you are."

"That's a technicality that we have _never _applied when dealing with the families of victims."

"But you weren't a member of Greg's family," Brass said.

"His parents are dead, he was an only child," Grissom said, voice rising, "and the only family he had was on this shift.  Let me see him, Jim, or I swear - - "

"Fine.  I'm not going to fight you right now.  It's just not worth it."

Brass kept his hand on Grissom's elbow as they trekked once more through the maze of hallways, as if he were restraining Grissom from some suicidal leap out the nearest window.  The door to the morgue was cool steel, pale gray and impressive.  Brass pushed the door open first, and Grissom followed right behind him, shouldering his way in.  _Little boxes, _he thought, _little rooms._

Robbins was working over an autopsy table, and his head turned when they entered.  His face looked ashen.  "Gil?  You shouldn't be here."

"I wanted to see Greg before you performed the autopsy," Grissom said, his voice surprisingly steady.  "And I know that you haven't performed the autopsy, because Nick hasn't seen him yet, and you can't autopsy on an identified body until the primary contact has been notified."

"Is this what we want, Captain?" Robbins asked, looking past him to Brass.

"He's within his rights," Brass said, "but I told him that it's not a good idea.  He didn't listen."

"_Show me_."

Robbins moved away from the table and Grissom felt himself recoil as every muscle in his body tried to move away from what he could see on the table.  It was Greg, yes, but it wasn't Greg as he had last seen him.  Grissom couldn't count how many bodies he'd seen in his lifetime.  He'd seen bodies skinned, bodies mutilated, but he'd never seen one that made him so inherently repulsed.  In death, Greg had lost everything that had held him together in life.  That fragile, intense vitality had vanished, leaving behind hazel eyes without any spark, a mouth that couldn't smile, and hands that couldn't through themselves through the air in extravagant gestures.  Greg had been _negated_.

Reduced to zero.

He saw all of what Greg wasn't before he saw what Greg was.  The blood and the bruises.  The holes in his hands from nails.

And it was _insane_ that anyone could possibly think that he could do this.  He didn't have the capacity in him to destroy someone so completely.  He didn't think that he could kill someone, let alone kill them so brutally.  He hadn't ever liked violence, and the levels that it brought people to.  He would not have done this - - _could _not have done this.

"All right," Grissom said, "I understand now.  Thank you."

"What were you trying to understand?" Robbins asked.

"How someone could do this to him.  And I understand - - that I can't understand.  I just know that this happened because of me.  Because I couldn't keep my team safe from _my _problem.  I thought that it wouldn't affect them if I dealt with it alone, and now I've already lost Greg."

A different voice said from behind him, "I didn't know.  No one told me until I got here."  Nick was in his view, suddenly, pressing forward to look at Greg's body with the most terrible sadness on his face that Grissom felt like his own feelings had just been rendered invalid.  Nick's grief was open and violent.  "I didn't know," Nick repeated.  "I just wanted to apologize."

Nick stared down at Greg and said nothing at all for almost a minute, the rest of them waiting.

"I was going to apologize," Nick said brokenly.  "We had a fight.  I was going to apologize when I saw him today.  Be friends again."

His hand slid over the sheet next to Greg's hand, not touching the body, but skimming the surface close to it, his fingers trembling.

Grissom watched as a single tear rolled down Nick's cheek.

"To _apologize_," Nick said, his shoulders shaking.  "That's all."


	28. Reoccurring Over Time

Grieving Nick, angry Nick, and mental voices Nick, all in one chapter.  He's going through an awful lot right now - - though what else is new?

Again, continued thanks for all the lovely feedback.  I've decided to up this rating to an R, based mainly off some feedback about the violence of the death scene.  I hope this doesn't bother any of you.

- -

Chapter Twenty-eight: Reoccurring Over Time (NICK)

- -

No one said things thinking that they were going to last forever.  No one prepared every conversation as if it were going to be the last time they talked.  Despite all good intentions, good friends still sometimes parted on bad terms.  Just because no one could take back anything they said - - it didn't mean that they didn't expect that they wouldn't have a chance to at least bury it under other conversations.  Nick had never thought that his last words to Greg would be what they were.  He couldn't retract them _or _wash over them.  He was all out of chances.

Warrick hadn't been able to tell them easily, they had just all been _sitting _there, blank-faced and dark-circled, yawning into their hands.  He had talked and kept talking about ethics and accidents and investigations and loss until the truth didn't so much drop out as crawl out, unraveled and pieced together so slowly that it still seemed possible to escape it, just by playing dumb.  But Sara hadn't been able to keep her mouth shut, and had to make it true by saying:

"Greg's _dead_?"

Her voice had been a combination of fear and shock, and Warrick had nodded, and Nick hadn't been able to escape the truth anymore.  It was just the end of the line, the end of the steady plane of his life that had, until that moment, continued, and he neatly stepped off.

He received his own actions in flashes, after the fact.

_(martyr)_

He didn't even know that he was going to the morgue until he was there, didn't know that he was crying until he saw his own tears mirrored on Grissom's face, and didn't even know he had spoken until he had already been answered.

Brass tried to usher him back into the main part of the lab, his hands on Nick's shoulders, maneuvering and coaxing, but Nick fought back until he had wormed out from under Brass and was standing behind Grissom, almost _hiding _behind Grissom.  Grissom could maybe protect him, because, ridiculous or not, whether or not Nick was just That Guy, Grissom was maybe magic, and if Nick asked nicely enough, Grissom could wind back time and save Greg.  Grissom could even take Nick's words away on the roof, so that Nick could wipe away his jetlag and irritation and not let it spill out.

"Nick - -"  Brass walked towards him again.

"I want to talk to Grissom," he said.  He was surprised at how _scratchy _his voice sounded.  Like his vocal chords were made of sandpaper.

"That's not a good idea right now - - "

"I _want _to _talk _to _Grissom_!" he yelled, and listened as the sandpaper became steel.

It was Grissom who put his hands on Nick's shoulders, then, and steered him away into the corner of the room.  "What is it, Nicky?"

"We had a fight," Nick said again, and tried to fit all of his meanings into those four words, tried to somehow show Grissom exactly how bad it had been and how far it had gone, but Grissom looked at him with those implacable eyes, and he knew that Grissom wasn't getting it at all.  "I told - - told him that he wasn't some kind of martyr.  I blamed him for what's happening to _you_."

The "you" came out like an accusation, and he saw Grissom wince.  He felt instantly shameful, but pressed on, his mouth trembling and the words sounding like mush.

_(martyr)_

"It wasn't even about him.  I was tired, and I'd just come back to find out everything that had happened here - - I didn't mean to say it.  I didn't mean to blow up at him.  He blew right back, yeah, sure, but I started it."

"It's not your fault that Greg's dead, Nick," Grissom said.

Nick wondered if that were Grissom's idea of comfort.

Grissom continued, all of his attention suddenly targeted on Nick, "This isn't your fault.  It's mine, but I can't help right now.  You'll have to do it.  Nick, I want you to learn everything you can about Matthew Flowers, the signature killer."

"Warrick - -"  It takes him a moment to catch his breath and orient himself.  "Warrick asked me last night.  You think that was who - - you think _he_ - - ?"

Grissom nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"I'll get on it," Nick said.  "Right away.  Promise." 

He felt his mouth squirm again, and he _hated _being vulnerable like this, open and hurting.  It was like someone had stabbed him through a dozen times and then trusted him to get up and keep going, keep walking.  People were counting on him, after all, so all he could do was just press his hands over the cuts to slow the blood-flow.  _That _was grief.  Grief was walking wounded, stumbling around, looking straight ahead, and gradually realizing that the blood on the floor wasn't your own, after all.

And the great insight he had been hoping for from Grissom was just what Warrick had already told him: Matthew Flowers.

_Then _Nick got it; he understood why Grissom suddenly looked so fragile - - so fallen from a pedestal.

And Nick said, "It's not your fault he's dead, either."

_(martyr)_

The gratitude on Grissom's face was somehow painful to look at.

_Is that what I do now?  Is that some kind of post-Greg epiphany?  I can comfort?  I know what people want to hear and I have the strength to say it?  How stupid.  How perfect for me, really.  How mind-numbingly appropriate._

But it was what he wanted.  Saying that to Grissom was like saying, "Okay, Grissom, it might be as much your fault as it is mine, but give me your guilt and I'll take it, because at least I was there near the end.  The last thing I said to him was enough to kill any chances of a clear conscience, so give me all your guilt, and maybe I'm even more of a martyr than Greg was, because the weight of the world feels good right now.  See, it's not just pain, it's _penance_."

He was abruptly aware that it was time for one of them to say something, but his prepared speech was pointless.  Grissom would look at him like he were crazy, and although crazy would be fun for a while, crazy wasn't going to solve anything.  He'd go crazy later, when it was quiet, and he was staring up at his ceiling, calculating the hours gone by to find out exactly when things went so wrong.

"I trust you," Nick said.

_Too bad you couldn't have said that earlier, to someone else._

He had never seen Grissom look like that.  So used, so old.  Wadded up and thrown away.

"That may not be the best idea, Nicky."

Robbins and Brass were silent in their respect positions, Robbins (thankfully) waiting to begin the autopsy.  If he saw someone cutting Greg open, Nick thought that he might actually throw up, and he hadn't thrown up at a crime scene or an autopsy in years, not even when they had the decomp a few years ago. 

He shook hands with Grissom even though it would've made sense to hug him.  Grissom wasn't really the hugging type.  The shake, at least, was so desperate and clenched that it felt like more than it was.  Hands traveled from hands to wrists to forearms, and Nick felt himself fighting back tears, because crying in front of Grissom was embarrassing.  But he was going to say goodbye like this, dammit, he was going to end this _right_ so that if Grissom died before Nick saw him again, the last thing he said would have been _I trust you _and not some childish _taunt_.

This time, he let Brass half-walk, half-shove him to the door.

"You shouldn't say things like that to him," Brass said quietly.  "I trust him, too, but it looks bad for the investigation to show a personal bias, even if we _know _that Grissom didn't even _touch _Greg.  Gotta keep up appearances."  Brass scowled at everyone that passed them whenever they directed their pitying looks at Nick.  "If we're tough, no one can say we know he's innocent."

"I get that," Nick said.  The next person who took a small step towards him to offer some kind of commiseration was going to get punched in the face.  He didn't want commiseration.  "But I don't want to end anymore conversations on bad terms."

Brass nodded.  "Yeah, I know.  Just don't let it get around."

"Will do," Nick muttered, pushing open the glass doors to the break-room.  Warrick was still standing, still looking like he might have to talk for an hour to get out a single sentence.  Sara and Catherine were pinned at opposite ends of the table, avoiding glances and kind of tearing up separately.  Nick sat square in the middle and put his elbows on the tabletop.

_(martyr)_

"I talked to Grissom," Nick said.

They all looked at him, eyes tentative, as if he might snap again, and this time, kill instead of run.

"I had him brought in," Warrick said, and hastily added, "not arrested, though.  Listen, we all know that we have to play fair on this, right?  We get that, right?"

Long, meaningful look at Nick.

Nick thought about throwing the table across the room and seeing how many long, meaningful looks he got then.  Warrick didn't think he could be objective on this?  Fine, whatever.  He didn't particularly care about that or anything else right now.  He'd already gotten his mission from either boss - - real or temporary - - and it wasn't based on anything that could be compromised, no matter how much personal interest he had in the case.

Matthew Flowers.

He also thought about saying, "Maybe toss one of those looks at Sara, okay?  I'm not the only one who doesn't want Grissom called guilty."

Warrick must have taken Nick's long silence as an agreement, because he pressed on.

"To branch out from the forensics a little," Warrick said, "the strongest argument for Grissom's innocence is his lack of motive.  There was no reason for him to - - to . . . kill Greg.  Officially, we had to have him brought in because of the missing evidence problem, but that's not a real motive, and we can make that clear to anyone who asks."

"Why is it not a real motive?" Catherine asked.  Her pretty face was perfectly expressionless, like looking at a wall of glass.  The only glimmers off the surface were Nick's own feelings.

"Because Grissom didn't _know _that the evidence was missing, let alone that it disappeared from Greg's lab.  It wasn't in any of the press reports, and we all agreed not to tell him."

Nick saw Sara's reflection change.  She had been pale and beautiful before, hurt but still strong, and he knew where the strength came from, because Sara had no reason to feel guilty.  When he watched the guilt surface in her eyes, it was more than unsettling, it was exhilarating.  Selfish or not, he didn't want to be the only one who showed their emotions on the surface.  If Catherine felt guilty, she was hiding it too well for comfort.

"I told him," Sara said.

Nick halfway expected someone to say, _You did what now?_

"I _told _you," Warrick said, his voice practically shaking with anger.  "I _told _you not to tell him.  You gave him a motive.  Do you even _know _how guilty this makes him look?"

"Yes," Sara said.  "I do."

It was the simple fact that she wasn't defending herself that made Nick jump to her defense.  Because, like with Grissom, he couldn't just stay still and watch her get hurt.  The same deal all over again: know what people need to hear, and say it.  Say it when they couldn't.

_(martyr)_

"It doesn't matter," Nick said.  "You can't blame her for thinking that Grissom deserved to know what happened to the evidence in his own case.  Besides, we have all the articles from . . . from the crime scene," he continued bravely, "and we can still forensically prove that he didn't do anything wrong.  Just because he has a motive doesn't mean that he's guilty."

"We have the evidence," Warrick said, still not looking at Sara, "but who knows how long we'll have that?  Besides, I've been wanting to run some tests, but we're still missing Hodges.  If this keeps up, I'm going to have to pull the Trace guy out of days and have him work the case."

"Hodges is missing?"

"I called him in just before I called you," Warrick said, "and he said he'd be here right away."

"Can't we run some of the tests by ourselves?" Catherine asked.  "Not all of them require that much expertise.  I want to get started on that rose you found."

Warrick assented, and started assigning.  He gave Catherine the rose, Nick got Greg's clothes to examine, and Warrick very, very reluctantly told Sara to get started on looking over both the telephone pole and the plywood.  "I'm going to check out the - - autopsy," Warrick said, looking faintly squeamish at the idea.  "Everybody come and see me when you get your evidence processed."

Nick thought about going over the bloody clothes, inch by inch, looking for stray fibers or traces of foreign cells, and shuddered.  Long work, with probably nothing at the end of it.  The killer would've probably worn gloves, after all, and he was afraid that he would just spend hours tweezing and swabbing and getting _nothing_.  Worthless.  Useless.

_(martyr)_

He touched Sara's wrist as they headed out into the main lab.

"It's not your fault," he said.  "You thought you were doing the right thing."

Sara smiled at him, sadly.  "Yeah.  But since when does that mean anything?  Besides, I didn't even do it for the right reason.  I didn't do it because I thought he deserved to know.  I didn't do it because I thought someone should warn him.  I told him because I wanted him to remember that I was the one who came to him and told him the truth.  I wanted him to remember that I broke the rules for him."

"You told him because you love him," Nick said, but Sara just shook her head once, as if he wasn't understanding her at all.

"It wasn't about love," she said, "it was about making myself someone he needed.  I just wanted to make up for saying something I regretted."

"I told Greg. . ."  He swallowed.  "I blamed him for losing the evidence."

There it was, in the open now - - and telling Sara was completely different from telling Grissom.  Telling Grissom had been fine because Grissom had needed reassurance that he wasn't alone in the guilt for Greg's death, but telling Sara, who hadn't done anything wrong, brought on an immediate, scalding sense of shame.  He could have gone the rest of his life without them knowing what had happened on the roof.  Warrick thought that Nick just convinced Greg to go home.  But hiding that many secrets was poison, and he couldn't afford to die right now anymore than he could afford to go crazy.

Save death and insanity for when he had more time.

"Two peas in a pod," Sara said, looking at him with more kindness than he had expected.  "We all do things we regret."

And he had thought that she would understand.  He didn't want kindness, didn't want forgiveness.  He wanted blame and guilt and finger-pointing and as much pain as he could carry without falling down entirely.  He wanted Sara to tell him he was right, that his last words to Greg were permanent and unchangeable, that his guilt was deserved and correct, and all she was doing was comparing them.  Whatever Sara had said to Grissom, she'd had time to take it back.

Nick was all out of chances.  He'd carry that for the rest of his life, and Sara thought that they were so much alike.

He pulled away from her, anger suddenly blocking out his grief, and walked down the hall, ignoring the whispers of the people he passed, but nevertheless getting the feeling that they weren't just pitying him for losing a friend, they were blaming him for killing one.

And he took it all in, breathed it like air, and held it inside.  So much bitterness.

_(martyr)_

_(you want to be a martyr)_

Let them blame him.  He wanted it.

_(who's the martyr now, Nicky?)_

_(let's go)_


	29. Pieces of Death

On the subject of Brass - - remember, they have to at least _pretend _to be objective on this, otherwise they'd all be removed from the case for personal involvement. So no one can really openly sympathize with Grissom, because it'll make any evidence they collect look suspicious, especially if he's proved innocent in the end.

Sara chapter. Enjoy!

- -

Chapter Twenty-nine: Pieces of Death (SARA)

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The plywood wasn't giving her anything, and the telephone pole was just a telephone pole. They both had blood on them - - blood that Sara had to assume was Greg's. She swabbed some for good measure, but her heart wasn't in it. It felt so useless, so . . . superfluous. The plywood was cheap plywood that could have been purchased at absolutely any hardware store in Las Vegas, and the telephone pole was the property of the lab, not the killer. She stood with her back to the sun, trying to imagine what Greg would have looked like, pinned to the two of them, his arms raised like a scarecrow's. She shivered, and didn't know if the moisture on her face was sweat or tears.

She hadn't had a chance to cry for Greg yet. Everything was too squashed together. Warrick had barely finished telling them about Greg before Nick ran out, and then it was worrying about Nick, and when Nick had returned, it was just a series of mini-explosions, little confrontations that everyone was too tired to carry all the way.

She had pissed Nick off somehow, and she didn't know what she had said wrong. Just another reason why she wasn't Grissom's people person. Nick had needed her, and all she had done was upset him even more, judging by the look on his face - - the pained, thin, almost steely look of guilt-agony.

"Getting anything?"

She wiped her eyes before turning around. Warrick, his hands in the pockets of his blue windbreaker, staring at the pole and mounted board with an expression she couldn't readily identify.

"Lots and lots of nothing." She handed him the samples she'd already bagged and tagged - - blood and wooden splinters. She sighed. "Almost none of it's traceable." She motioned the board, not wanting to touch it and end up with the blood on her fingertips. "This is generic, and the pole's ours."

"I need you to do me a favor," Warrick said.

"I don't want to go hands-off on this case," Sara said, stripping off the latex. "I may have compromised Lizzie's case but you can't make an argument for me not working Greg's. It's important to me - - it's important to all of us."

"Slow down. No conclusions."

"I'm listening," she said.

"I've got a theory, and I need you to hear me out. Nick's not really functioning right now, and Catherine and I are - - having some problems. She's going to turn it into a confrontation. We're still not cool, okay, but we need to work together on this."

"A temporary truce," Sara said, nodding. "All right. Tell me."

Warrick pulled his hands out of his pockets and began to shape them in the air, constructing his idea with careful points and elegant gestures. He had musician's hands, long and limber. Sara watched them instead of him as he talked, because something in Warrick's eyes was too alive, too vivid. He had snagged back some of the vitality they had all lost over the last few days, and she envied him for it.

"When I called Hodges, he said that it was impossible for Greg to be dead."

"Impossible. Strange word to use."

"That's what I'm thinking. I wasn't worried about it right then - - there were too many other problems. Still are, but I've had time to think. He also kept _insisting _that Greg wasn't dead, over and over again. That it wasn't true. He was - - agitated, panicky."

She made the connection he was looking for. "You think that Hodges had something to do with Greg's murder."

"Not necessarily. Didn't have to be the murder he had a hand in. He brought up the evidence himself, and asked if that was why Greg died. I told him maybe, and he promised to be here in under an hour. It's been three."

"Greg," she said softly, disbelievingly. "He _knew _about this."

"Wait a minute, Greg knew about what? The missing evidence? He said he didn't know what happened to it." Warrick put his hands on her shoulders, not giving her a choice about whether she wanted to look at him or not. "Sara, what do you know?"

"We had dinner," she said slowly. "Grissom - - apologized to Greg. And Greg said that he was jumping at shadows, thinking that there was anything wrong with Hodges. Ecklie and Hodges. Said he turned into a conspiracy theorist over night. He - - he guessed it. There wasn't any evidence, but he guessed it anyway. He knew that there was something wrong."

Warrick nodded, his eyes glazing over, thoughtful. "We played pool. He was - - weird. Quiet. Said he'd talked to Grissom and Grissom had called him paranoid."

"We didn't get it, didn't pick up on it. We blocked it out - - we blocked _him _out - - because there was so much stuff going on. It wasn't important enough, so we just . . . didn't listen."

When she looked back at the cross again, she saw Greg there, arms pinioned and legs tied, dying slowly. How slowly? How much time did he have upside-down like that, dwindling, slipping? How long had he been in pain? Her arms were shaking; her whole body was shaking. She pulled away from Warrick and shuddered, looking at it. It was a _mockery_. Of God, of Greg, of them, of _everything_. It wasn't just a murder, it was destruction.

"You talked to Dr. Robbins," she said. It came out like a whisper. "What killed him?"

"Bled out," Warrick said, looking at the cross. She didn't seen any imagination in his face, though, just - - knowledge. Bleak and grim and terrible.

"You saw him," she said, realizing. "You saw him while he was still up here."

He nodded stiffly. "Robbins and I processed. They - - the techs - - they found him. Bobby and Jacqui. I was sleeping in the break room, and they woke me up. I didn't even believe them until I saw it. Dammit, Sara, who _does _this? Who _kills _like this? And why Greg?"

"I don't know," Sara said. "But we know who to ask."

"Go," he said. "I'll get some officers to back you up, but get on the road. We can't afford to wait anymore. God!" He pushed his hand against his head in a quick slap so hard that his head rocked back on his neck. "We missed it. We waited so damn long - - he's probably already on his way to - - to _Mexico _or something."

"I'll get the car," Sara said.

She got the address first, in the cool, air-conditioned sanity of the lab, and then walked outside again, where the sunlight was brutal, merciless, and damning, casting a stunning shadow off the cross at the corner of the parking lot. The sight of it, so crude and so _mocking_, was already drawing people like flies. Reporters chomping at the bit of the yellow tape, and even civilians. That was what made her actively nauseous as she went to the car, that the same people they worked every day to get justice for would _clamor_ to see not just the bloody cross, but Greg's body.

They didn't shout anything but questions, but she heard the intent anyway:

_Bring him out, bring him out so we can see that he's dead. We're still alive, so let's celebrate. He's worm-food, but we're alive. We're walking around, so bring out your dead for show._

They weren't like flies. They were another, more sinister breed of insects, questing for blood, scrounging over the surface of her scene, buzzing and chattering to themselves, as they looked for something on which to feed.

"What's your name?" someone shouted, pointing a microphone at her like a gun, simultaneously threatening and offering. Catch-22.

"Sara Sidle. CSI Three."

She was looking for her keys, almost trying to ignore them.

"What happened here? Have you identified the victim?"

"Victim is Greg Sanders, age 28, DNA technician," she said, and hated the way her voice came out sounding processed and clipped, as if this case mattered no more than any other. She _had _to pretend, she _had _to fake it or lose the case entirely, but she didn't have to like reducing Greg to the level of everyone else. No one could ask that.

One particularly brave reporter: "Miss Sidle, was he crucified?"

The air around them stilled, people suddenly quieting, not just wanting any news at all but wanting that specific news. It wasn't just bloody entertainment anymore, they all understood the implications. A crucifixion wasn't a gunshot or a stabbing. It was something wrapped in a cloth of agony and symbolism, something reverent and cruel, and the word came with its own baggage, complicated and individual to every single person there.

Quiet. Needy.

Sara knew that now, if she confirmed what the reporter had asked, Greg's death wouldn't just be any death to them, either. It would be a tragedy, gruesome and horrifying, and a few of them would lose sleep over her words and the singularly powerful image of the malformed cross in the high sun.

But it still wouldn't be about Greg for them. They didn't know him. They hadn't valued his life. The only reason his death would matter to them would be for the gore factor.

She said, "No comment."

The interior of the Denali was cool; sanity come again. She peeled out of the parking lot and they stood around the exit in a flock, watching her. Some shouted, some waved signs. _POLICE SECRETS_, they blared, and Sara wanted to close her eyes.

The drive to Hodges's apartment complex was longer than she wanted and somehow shorter than she needed. A longer drive would have given her time to think, to get angry, to cry for Greg. To do _something_, absolutely _anything_. She need a vacation more than ever. Not just sleep and a shower, but tears and hate. She needed time to hate Hodges for whatever he had done, and time to hate herself for not noticing that anything was wrong.

A shorter drive would have let her put pedal to the metal, to speed and get there as soon as possible, with no time to think at all.

She had too much time to think and yet not enough.

Hodges's complex was a sterile, artificial buildings, with walls that were a weird, plain mix of white and gray. The surface was slick and smooth, almost slippery to Sara's touch as she glided her fingers over it before entering, as if she could get some understanding just by the sensation. Nothing came, and after a moment, she drew her hand back. Nick once told her that people were like their houses, that either the house became the person or the person became the house over the years, depending which was stronger.

Like her old roommate Judy's theory about catching insanity, Nick's words had made her uneasy. She'd laughed it off as folksy saying, but had stared at her apartment that night anyway, wondering who was winning, and decided, after some thought, that she was. She'd painted the walls and put in the bookshelves. She had photographs stuck on her fridge with magnets that looked like different pieces of fruit. She had stamped and imprinted herself all through the small set of rooms.

If the inside of Hodges's apartment was anything like the outside, she could almost sympathize. The colors were strong and the angles were impossibly straight. It would've been hard to win out over that particular complex.

She didn't need to ask for directions, the floors were clearly labeled. She found Hodges's door, and listened before she even knocked, her ear to the satiny-smooth wood.

Then she rapped on it, hard. Once. Twice. She pounded it with the flat of her hand.

"Hodges! _Hodges_! It's Sara Sidle, open the _door_!"

Her knocks became more and more insistent, until she wasn't just hitting the door, she was _pummeling _it. Irrational rage, irrational adrenaline. She was going to _kill _the door, she was going to beat the _shit _out of this door, this fucking _door _that was between her and what she needed to get. She didn't get to stop Grissom from being accused of rape. She didn't get to stop him from being accused of murder, not even by herself. She didn't get to recognize what was coming and she didn't get to save Greg. She didn't even get to save Lizzie Zimmer, who had probably been so close to clueless right up until the time someone raped her - - again - - and killed her.

She hadn't even been able to hold onto Grissom.

But she was going to get in there and she was going to get Hodges. She was going to take out everything on this door if she had to do, but she was going to get inside.

_And this is for Grissom and this is for Greg and this is for the blood and the tears and the way Nick looked when Warrick told us the way he looked like he'd fallen and this is for what I said to Grissom and this is for what Nick said to Greg and this is for the press like gnats and this is for this is for me - -_

She battered at it, hands feeling like shapeless pieces of wood just attached to her wrists. Lumps. Nerveless, senseless. And finally the door gave way without a single kick, just that awful pounding.

The door swung open, and Sara could see what was inside. Her hands dropped to her sides, suddenly oversized, as if the swelling and bruising were already taking effect.

Her fingers stiff and painful with splinters and blood, she dialed Warrick.

"Change the cops to an ambulance," she said, her voice no longer composed at all but shaky. "I - - I won't need any backup."

"Dead?" Warrick demanded in her ear, so loud and inquisitive that for a second, she forgot that it was even Warrick at all, and it could have just been a member of the crowd in the parking lot. Then her head cleared, and she said:

"Yeah."

"A rose? Like Zimmer and Greg? Sara, if Flowers took care of Hodges, you should get out of there in case he decides to come back - - "

"It wasn't Flowers," Sara said, and knees were almost _knocking _together in a strange tap-beat, so she just sat down in the doorway, her pants rubbing against the carpet and splinters of wood. He head dropped forward, almost to her knees, as she just gave in to the exhaustion. "He hanged himself."


	30. Suicide Novel

Good job (and kudos) to everyone who noticed what I believe to be the last of the religious parallels. Yes, Hodges equals Judas, and yes, Judas hanged himself after the betrayal. This chapter has a little calming-down at the ending of it, but we still have a lot of messes to work through before the end, including (just to tantalize you) a shooting, a kidnapping, a couple revelations, and more bad things happening to good people.

Like I said, I believe in warning people - - as long as the warnings are really, really vague.

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Chapter Thirty: Suicide Novel (CATHERINE)

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"The part that bothers me the most," Catherine said, "is the drama."

"The drama?" Warrick had his back to her, studying Hodges's body, and he didn't turn around. She could tell from the stiffness in his back how upset he was - - every muscle seemed tenser than usual. He had been close-mouthed all night, part of which she chalked up to grief for Greg - - Lord knew she was having her own trouble coping with that - - but the other part was probably the unmistakable burden of having to take command. She'd seen it written in Grissom's stature after he'd been promoted.

"The drama," Catherine said, "of the suicide note. He was trying to do the right thing, I'll give him that, but he played it up, too."

The suicide note that they had found began with, _I'd like to make a formal confession. _Catherine had studied enough creative writing in school to know an obvious hook when she saw one, as if Hodges had been trying to compel them to read onwards, even though he knew that they wouldn't just toss a suicide note away because it wasn't Pulitzer Prize-winning material.

"He knew that this was going to have an effect on us, so he heightened it," she continued. "The hanging is a riff off Greg's - -" She couldn't say the word. _Crucifixion _seemed stuck in her teeth, glued there. She swallowed, and the feeling didn't go away. " - -death. Greg's death. Judas hanged himself, ergo the Biblical significance, and Hodges turns out to be just as much a drama queen as whoever did this to Lizzie Zimmer and Greg."

Following the hook, the suicide letter went on and on, almost rambling. Drama or not, Hodges hadn't been in his clearest state of mind when he wrote it. Parts of it were highlighted, as if he'd wanted to draw their attention so that the words jumped out of the page. _Conspiracy. Flowers. Mistakes._ Nothing was clear or concise, but what they had been able to understand were the identities that he had penned out most lucidly, and clearly, at the beginning of the letter.

_I'd like to make a formal confession. I am responsible for the deaths of Elizabeth Zimmer and Greg Sanders, but I am not singularly complicit in them. The other involvement came from Abraham Claberson, who assisted in making the rape allegation, Matthew Flowers, who raped and killed Zimmer and murdered Sanders, and Conrad Ecklie._

_Ecklie was the one who came to me first and later asked me to steal the evidence._

Sara and Brass had gone back almost immediately to take Ecklie into custody, and Warrick had Nick looking for Abraham Claberson. Catherine didn't know if that was the best idea - - Nick had a strange, haunted look about him, and instead of seeing through him, as she could have always done before, she saw nothing. It was if someone had closed a series of doors leading to this thoughts, and she was left with nothing but flickers of brief, painful emotion. Since his run to the morgue, Nick had simply shut down entirely. He was acting as if _he _had killed Greg, but if anyone had the right to be guilty about that - - well, anyone outside Hodges's circle - - it was:

_Me. Because Grissom may never have laid a hand on Greg, but I sure did. And the sound was enough to make everyone look up and start paying attention, but not enough. Too little, too late._

He hadn't even tried to hit her back, or cut her again with some sarcastic remark. He'd just sat there, his hand on his cheek against the scarlet marks her fingers had left, and looked like he should have expected it. Like he'd known all along that something like this was bound to happen to him someday.

That was the drama that _really _bothered her the most.

"You didn't send anyone to look for Flowers," she said, changing the subject.

Warrick still wasn't looking at her, just staring at Hodges, as if he were going to start speaking any second now. Catherine thought that was unlikely. Hodges had said everything he could think of and then he had simply gotten the rope and taken the step.

"That's because looking for Matt Flowers is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack," Warrick said. "Damn hard to impossible."

"You're not going to just let him walk away?"

The disbelief in her voice startled her. She sounded like a rookie, as if she were still under the impression that all the bad guys got caught at the end of the day and the good guys went home and tucked their daughters into bed and told those same daughters the bedtime stories that would make them believe like rookies, too. She sounded like _Greg_, and that was what was giving her trouble, she sounded like she still had that damned innocence engraved in her somewhere, that confidence born of the assurance that there were happy endings and real heroes.

Warrick finally turned around. He'd lost weight in the last few days, and looked haggard instead of heroic.

But, then again, Catherine didn't believe in happy endings anyway. She didn't want Warrick to be her knight. She wanted Warrick for something more elementary than that - - not just sex, though. There was more going on there than just a flash of attraction. She wanted to be able to be comforted, wanted to be able to open up, and Warrick had once seemed like the kind of man that would let her do that, that would love her for doing that. Warrick had once seemed like the kind of man she _could _love, and let herself be loved by. Last week, it would have been a possibility so close to her that she could feel it moving, almost breathing.

This week, it was dissolved and fading. Too much tension, too much stress. And like Greg, she should have known. Love caused more problems than it solved.

"No," Warrick said. "I couldn't do that. But it's going to be a damn sight harder than I'd like to even know where to start. Hodges never even _met _him." He motioned to the suicide note. "Outside of Ecklie, that's all conjecture. _Rumors_. He leaves a suicide note full of _rumors_. How helpful."

"I feel sorry for him," Catherine said. "Drama or not. He didn't know."

According to the note, he hadn't known, and the honest agony that seemed to come through there, even through all the theatrical overtones, seemed to prove it. Ecklie had asked him to steal the evidence in Grissom's case _not _to implicate Grissom further, but to overturn Flowers's plans. Flowers was the one running the show, in the end, and Ecklie, Claberson, Hodges - - hell, even Lizzie - - were just observers. Not innocent observers, but practically passive ones.

Hodges had been trying to do the right thing, and that burned. He'd taken the evidence and hidden it - - they'd found it all in his closet, still sealed - - because he and Ecklie had been trying to frustrate Flowers enough so that he would leave.

_I think that Sanders died because of what I did, _Hodges had written, _and even if I could live with the rest of this, I can't live with that. We weren't friends, don't make the mistake of believing that. But I KNEW him. I saw him every day and then I heard what happened. We didn't scare Flowers away, we just made Flowers up the ante. Greg was implicated in stealing the evidence, so Greg would have to die, to cast even more suspicion on Grissom._

_I gave Grissom motive for murder, and Flowers used it._

"He tried to do the right thing," Warrick admitted, "but it would've helped if he'd known what that was." He struck out, suddenly, and his hand knocked the suicide note out from between her fingers. "Dammit, Catherine. He should have _come _to _us_. We could've done something. We all could have stopped this at the very beginning, when Ecklie first asked Hodges to stand by and be ready if he needed something. That's what he _says_, and whether or not he tried to do the right thing later doesn't matter, because he had his chance back before anyone died, and he didn't take it!"

Hodges said, _He told me to be ready in case he needed my help. He told me that he wouldn't forget my assistance. There are more important things than raises, he said, and asked what Grissom had ever really done for me. He asked for me to keep quiet until he asked, and I did._

_I did. Because I wanted more than I had._

She picked the note up off the floor. "He left us this, at least. A whole novel of a suicide note."

"Yeah. A novel where he points to Flowers as the kingpin and then gives us nothing on how to find him."

"He gave us Ecklie," Catherine said, "and he said that Ecklie could identify Flowers."

She looked at Hodges, now nothing but a body, a memory, and a suicide novel. He had bite-marks on his tongue and painful ligature around his throat. She didn't need Robbins to point out that this was the genuine article, as far as suicides went. _Poor Hodges_, she thought, almost absently, _didn't he know that no matter what he gave us, it wouldn't be enough to cancel out what he _didn't _give? He tried - - but it wasn't enough. And no one's grieving for him now._

"You want to talk to Ecklie?" he asked.

"I want to kill Ecklie," she admitted blithely. "No, don't let me in there. It wouldn't be a good idea. I don't know if I could stop myself if he said something about Greg. I hit him, Warrick. You were there. I blamed him and I hit him and now he's dead. And it doesn't matter if I apologized before he died or not, he still died with that bruise on his face."

Warrick's face was impassive, but he touched her shoulder, and even through the latex gloves, his hand was warm.

"He wouldn't have blamed you," Warrick said.

"I know that." She smoothed the wrinkled suicide novel again. It was held together by paper clips and tied together with insanity, scribbles of black ink on white paper as if everything were so simple as to be described in plain words. For all his brilliance, Hodges hadn't understood that. It must have taken him hours to write it. If they had started looking for him earlier, they might have still found him penning it. One more person they hadn't been able to save.

"I know that," she said again, "and that's why it hurts so much."

"You didn't mean to hurt him."

"Hodges didn't mean to hurt anybody, either."

"Don't compare the two things," Warrick said. "They're different. Hodges could have stopped this all if he had wanted to. It only got to be too much when it started involving him - - when it _touched _him. You read it: _he saw Greg every day_. They weren't friends, but Greg existed to him in a way that Zimmer didn't. One death wasn't enough. It took a whole other death to convince Hodges that maybe enough was enough. You aren't like him. You couldn't have done anything."

Catherine moved the paper clip across the paper. It made a rustling sound.

Pain and fear and loneliness. Hurt and need and want. She was more like Hodges than Warrick would ever be willing to see.

"Are we friends, Warrick?"

It was a mark of how far the two of them were gone that he had to pause, to think, instead of answering immediately. Then he leaned forward a little and kissed her cheek. She closed her eyes at his touch, and it was all the answer she was going to need, or all that she was going to ask for. If she could still love Warrick, then there was hope. And if Warrick could still love her, then there were miracles. She could doubt and look back all she wanted, now, because she couldn't stop herself anymore. She'd lost her sense of self-preservation.

"We're friends, Catherine," he said, and his voice was so gentle that she had to believe him.

They sat down to read the suicide novel again, and she could almost hear David Hodges's voice as he charted, with such precision, how things had gone wrong.


	31. Disappear Entirely

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the beautiful reviews.

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Chapter Thirty-one: Disappear Entirely (GRISSOM)

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Just once, he wanted to see everything in black and white. He wanted absolutes and whole answers, with none of the fragments and half-truths that life tended to throw at him. As far as black and white went, as far as clarity, Grissom seemed to receive only the black. The indisputable facts were that Greg was dead and that he had not died peacefully. After that, everything seemed subsidiary, waves eddying and falling against his subconscious, primary colors instead of blacks and whites.

When Nick told him about Hodges and Ecklie, he wanted to tell Nick that all of it seemed like just flickering colors in his peripheral vision, because Nick, so stricken, looked as if he might understand. Nick was hurting, and hurting badly, his voice coming out creaky and disconnected, and his whole self closed against Grissom. Nick had simply - - retreated. _Enough was enough_, Nick's eyes said, _and this is definitely enough. _He had the idea that Nick's vision had gone entirely black, with no chance of whites or even primary colors.

And Grissom just listened to him tell the story in that robot's voice, listened as Nick told him about Hodges and plans and lawyers and serial killers who were the force behind the figureheads.

"He tried to tell me," Grissom said finally. "Tried to tell me, and I called him paranoid."

"Greg," Nick said, and his mouth seemed to do a funny spasm, as if he tried to frown and cry and smile and speak all at the same time, and only succeeding in stretching the muscles instead. "Yeah. Oh. Yeah." He sounded confused, imprecise, floundering, and for a split second, Grissom could see all the way down through Nick's shields, and he could see a battle going on there - - an epic war in Nick's mind to hold off his grief and guilt so he could do his job.

"Warrick says. Warrick says," Nick continued, and then the glimpse was gone, replaced again by those shutters that kept Grissom entirely out, "that since we already have the primary suspects, there's no reason to keep you out of the case. He says that he's willing to make a few deals with Covallo, and as long as _he _stays the primary on the case - - you know, not you - - then Covallo will let you help us."

It was a deal. Grissom wiped a hand across his mouth, his fingers gliding coolly over his lips. It was more of a chance than he'd had since Lizzie's death, and far more of a chance than he thought he'd ever have again. It was a partial acceptance, and the first step back to his old life, to his normal life - - and he just sat there, motionless, wondering if this was still what he wanted. They were giving him his job back, and he would still have that career that had been his life - - Nick's small, tired grin confirmed that - - but was that even what he _needed _anymore? The rest of his life was in shambles, and if what Nick was saying about Ecklie and Flowers were true, then this had all been because of him. His own life, ruining his own life. And ending Greg's.

Hell, ending _Lizzie's, _even, if they came right down to it. She wasn't really innocent in the matter, but she had still been killed for his sake. To frame and to implicate.

So much death and chaos surrounded him in a circle, choking him, and he didn't know how he was supposed to feel about getting back a job that would just give him - -

_What? What's bothering you, Grissom, is that you know exactly what you need and now you can't have it._

Which was probably true - - he didn't usually lie to himself. Not about what he knew.

If Nick had entered the last of the little rooms with his head sunk instead of lifted, and if he had told Grissom that nothing had changed, that Greg was still dead and that it was _still _Grissom's fault, still all his fucking fault because it was _set up _for him, _set up _for _him _to be ruined, hurt who _Grissom _loved, and Greg ended up crucified in a _fucking parking lot _because of Grissom, because it was _all _because of Grissom, and the blood on Lizzie's sheets was owed to him, and the holes in Greg's hands were owed to him, and if Grissom didn't rape Lizzie and murder Greg, well, then, he might as well have. If Nick had told him this, and asked Grissom to just _leave_, to get the hell out of Dodge, because it was all his fault, then Grissom would have looked at Nick for a long time to try and see when Nick stopped being the person that Grissom knew he could trust and started being so bitter, but then he would have nodded, and he would've left without a second glance behind him, and without regrets.

If that had happened, he wouldn't have protested, because he would have known that every word Nick said was gospel truth, unkind or not, and it would have been an excuse. He wouldn't be abandoning them, he would just be - - exiled. Let go. Terminated. The lab no longer had need of a Gil Grissom.

It would be . . . punishment. Punishment for being the reason they hurt so badly. Punishment for Greg's death, Catherine's lowered eyes, and Warrick's exhaustion. Punishment for kissing Sara and opening up a door that he could not pass through, and punishment for the guarded look Nick had while he tried, behind his eyes, to not go insane too soon.

"Griss? Grissom, you can come back." Nick sat down beside him, close enough for Grissom to see that Nick was trembling. "You can come _back_," Nick emphasized. "Please, Grissom, we need you."

There was something too delicately heartbroken in Nick's expression for Grissom to explain about punishment and possibilities, so he just nodded. Nick gave him a genuine smile, and closed his eyes. Grissom watched as a crystalline line of tears appeared around Nick's eyelashes, and then Nick blinked them away like rainwater, still smiling just a little.

"I thought that you were going to say no," Nick said softly. "I was afraid you would. You looked like it, for a second, like you weren't going to - - Like you were gone," he finished, shaking his head, and a tearstain glimmered in the light.

"I'm right here, Nicky."

_And just who exactly are you trying to reassure now, Gil?  
  
_

Nick nodded. "Oh yeah. That's good. You're here, okay, I can deal."

"Ecklie," Grissom said, because he had to say _something_, and it was applicable enough. Couldn't wait to see Ecklie. Couldn't wait to get his _hands _on Ecklie, to tell the truth, so angry that it physically _hurt_ him, this waiting. "Are we going to go and talk to Ecklie about this?"

Nick's genuine smile turned into an expression so unrecognizable that Grissom couldn't decipher it until he imagined it away from Nick's face. It was a grimace of pure, unadulterated _hatred_. It was a razor blade smile; thin, tight, and sharp. He hated seeing that look on Nick's face, and it actually frightened him. It wasn't like the thought that Nick could hate someone hadn't ever entered his mind, that would be ridiculous - - but he had never _seen _it. Never believed that it would be so close, and so sudden.

"That's the plan," Nick said with that funny, hard grin still on his face. "We go in together, hold each other back, make sure no one kills him before he can testify."

"Make sure no one kills him?"

"Yeah. No one like us, I mean," and that grin didn't go away. Grissom didn't like it. It was too vicious, as if Nick didn't just want to _kill_ Ecklie, but rip him to shreds. It was a _predatory _look, he realized, with a dark chill. "And no one named Matthew Flowers."

He had to make that grin go away. Had to be remorseless enough to kill Nick's anger, and he didn't want to do that, because the anger made Nick seem more alive than the emptiness, and the silent desperation he'd had before: _Please, Grissom, we need you_. Nick's anger kept him sane in the place of the guilt that was otherwise taking over him, but the anger was going to hurt worse than the guilt after a while. No one could live with remorse that long - - it would devour them, eat them from within.

Grissom knew a lot about anger, and he knew even more about guilt.

"Do you know why I sent you to Boston, Nick?"

Nick blinked, the anger not gone, but hazed over. "Yeah - - you wanted me to find about Lizzie Zimmer. I'm sorry that I couldn't find more than I did but . . ."

"No, no. Why did I send _you _to Boston?"

Nick seemed to collapse one step a time, the grin going first. He looked down at his hands as if reassuring himself of all ten fingers, and said something that Grissom couldn't hear. He repeated it, louder, raising his gaze as far as Grissom's mouth, but still not looking in his eyes. Still trying to hide and shy away. "Expendable," he whispered. "You don't need me."

"No," Grissom said, shaking his head, "no, that - - that's not true."

He hadn't guessed that Nick would be so far off the mark - - he had meant to reassure Nick of his place and remind him that he was trusted as the safety. When Grissom wanted to react too hastily, when he was uncertain, he liked to have Nick there, steady and strong and _trustworthy_, reminding him of what he had to try and be. Had he really been so cruel or so careless as to let Nick translate that trust into condescension? But he hadn't known, of course, or he would have said something earlier - - maybe not so directly, but he would have at least _hinted_, complimented and smiled until Nick felt valuable, felt trusted. He hadn't known.

_But you suspected_, said a little voice in his head. It sounded almost like Greg, and when Grissom thought that, the resemblance seemed to grow stronger, given shape by his ghosts. _You always kind of suspected that he didn't think he was good enough, didn't you? And you tolerated that, because it wasn't too obvious. The only reason he was so valuable was because he thought that he didn't matter. He was afraid that you wouldn't tolerate any excess in him, Griss, that's why he's your safety. Warrick and Sara know you trust them, so they can do whatever they want. They can show fear or pain. Nick? In the immortal words of the Mafia - - fuhgeddaboudit, Grissom._

_After all, _the not-Greg continued, _we're cut from the same cloth, me and Nick. Or we were. Since you killed me, I'm not really cut from anyone's cloth. Just cut. The unkindest cut of all, right?_

How could he keep Nick perfectly sane if he couldn't even get rid of his own ghosts?

_Too many colors and too few absolutes_, Grissom decided, watching Nick watch him. _And too many misperceptions. How do I even start to tell him anything at all?_

"You aren't expendable, Nicky," he said, and put his hand on Nick's elbow, but Nick pulled away.

"We have an interview to do," Nick said, his voice iron-controlled and too quiet. "Come on. I want to get this over with. I just want it all to be over."

Grissom had had a case once where the killer was a young woman, so out of her mind with pain and drugs that she could barely make herself understood. Her words had come out in a mushy slur, apologies and prayers and pleas, and the only thing that consistently appeared like a thread through the lengthy ramblings was one constant statement, spoken in such high-pitched gibberish that if he hadn't heard it almost ten times, he would have dismissed it as mere insanity, and not real terror.

_Oh please, _she'd kept saying, _don't let me disappear, don't let me go away._

That was who he thought of when he looked at Nick. Nick looked as if he were trying his best not to disappear entirely. He put his chin up when he looked at Grissom - - brave and bold and terrified and defiant, so confident in his own insecurities.

"You ready for this?" Nick asked, and the faintest edge of hope showed in his voice. "I mean, it could all end the second we step into that room. It could just be over. Things could be okay again, you know? Things could - - could almost be okay," he amended, and Grissom knew he was thinking about Greg. "If it just ended now, we could still end it soon. We could still - - I mean, it could still be okay, right?"

"I don't know," Grissom said.

Nick paled but nodded, and held the door for him as they left the room. He stood there for almost another thirty seconds while Grissom watched - - just holding the door wide open as if waiting for one more person to stroll out of the room. After a while, he smiled sheepishly and let it swing closed with a small, almost inaudible click.


	32. Killing Cigarettes

Glad everyone got chills from the last chapter - - try this one on for size. Oh, and happy belated birthday to Janissa11! Enjoy the Nick. The very dark Nick.

- -

Chapter Thirty-two: Killing Cigarettes (NICK)

- -

He surprised himself by thinking of Kristy Hopkins.

She was the first thought he had when he saw Ecklie's face through the one-way glass. He had expected to think about Greg, because he had been appearing again and again in Nick's head for the past few hours, like a particularly catchy tune, but he thought of Kristy before he thought of Greg. Kristy, with her long dark hair tumbling over her bare shoulders when she slipped out of that flimsy shirt, and her upturned face golden from the ceiling light, her soft lips curved into a delicious smile. It had been a while since he had thought of her so consciously, and so vividly, and he was first stricken not with anger or sorrow at her death, but with actual _arousal_. His mouth was suddenly dry, and the slick soles of his shoes skidded over the tiles as he lost his balance. He nearly fell against Grissom, who held him up, apparently (and thankfully) believing that Nick's tumble was caused by pain. Nick could feel his face heating quickly with shame, canceling out the quick flow of memories, and Grissom held him steady.

"Are you going to be able to handle this?"

"Sure," Nick said.

He wiped a streak of sweat off his cheek and stared at Grissom's shoulder instead of at Grissom himself. Kristy Hopkins. That was the last long conversation he had had with Ecklie - - when the guy was accusing him of killing her. He'd thought that he'd hated Ecklie, then, he'd even said it to Catherine, his voice agitated so much that he could even _hear _it - - and he wasn't usually good at picking up subtleties in his own voice. But that wasn't right at all - - he hadn't really hated Ecklie, not then. That had been a combination of fear and grief. Hate was what replaced his desire for Kristy when he looked at Ecklie . . . this was the guy responsible for Greg's death. This was the guy who had been the reason for the missing evidence.

He looked at Ecklie and wished that Ecklie had hung himself, too.

Grissom kept holding his shoulders, a tight clench that was more hurtful than comforting. Grissom said his name in a harsh chant until Nick looked up at him. Grissom said, again, "Are you sure that you can handle this?"

"Definitely, man, I want this." He rubbed his hands against his pants. "I was just - - it just happened, that's all." He didn't want to explain to Grissom about Kristy Hopkins. He had been close to falling in love with her - - he had liked her, and been attracted to her - - and something might have grown between the two of them if it hadn't been for her death. That the memories were still strong enough to wind him up after all the years meant something more than he could really explain.

"Okay," Grissom said, and finally took his hands of Nick's shoulders. They felt bruised, and he rolled them in little circles. "But if you start losing it in there, I want you to just walk out. You don't have to impress Conrad Ecklie."

If he stayed, it would be to impress Grissom, not Ecklie, but he wasn't going to even try and pursue that angle. Grissom could deny whatever he wanted, but he couldn't do it convincingly. Nick knew the truth in a kind of drumbeat through his mind - - _expendable, expendable_ - - and _guilty, guilty_. He was so sick of trying to make himself look perfect for Grissom. If he stayed in that room, losing it or not, it wouldn't be for either of them: it would be for him. He deserved this.

He'd asked Sara to handle Claberson so he could talk to Ecklie, and he wouldn't give that up, wouldn't walk out in the middle of the interrogation just because of the constant reminders of Kristy and Greg, tied so permanently to Ecklie.

"I don't care about that," he said honestly, watching Ecklie through the glass. "Okay, let's go in there."

Nick didn't hold the door open that time, he let Grissom push out ahead of him and he followed right on his boss's heels, his toes almost snapping against the backs of Grissom's shoes. He wasn't going to wait for whatever else was in the room to leave. He didn't know what he had been waiting for, earlier - - it was like he had expected Greg to just come strolling out of the room right behind him with a little grin and some freaky magenta shirt, eyebrows all raised, saying something wry about Nick's sense of courtesy extending to opening doors but not to leaving Greg's deli sandwiches from the fridge untouched.

Grissom had stared at him. He wasn't going to be stared at right now. Like he told Grissom - - get in, get it over with. Like ripping off a Band-aid of grief.

Ecklie was thin-faced, and his mouth puckered. He looked at Grissom as if Nick didn't even exist, and that was the first thing annoyed him, almost making him want to reach over the table and turn Ecklie's head until Ecklie just _looked_ at him. He repressed the urge and stuck his hands in his pockets, curling them into fists. His fingers closed around quarters and an old pack of cigarettes that had softened until it felt mushy. He worked one out with a fingertip and thought about how good the nicotine would feel. It seemed to block out his anger, just a little.

He wasn't going to be a hero and he wasn't going to be a martyr. He was going to do it right this time, even if doing it right now couldn't fix what had already gone so immeasurably _wrong_.

Grissom said, "You hired a signature killer to ruin my life."

Nick thought that sounded pretty funny, just said straight out like that. He rubbed his fingers together and shredded paper and tobacco. He could feel it catching under his thumbnail.

"He calls himself an artist, actually," Ecklie said. It was one hell of a smart-ass remark to be making in an interrogation room right across from two men he'd _really _pissed off, but his strangely broken tone killed any innate sourness the words otherwise would have had. "And he's not just a killer. He's also a rapist, a thief, and a con man."

"He conned _you_, according to what Hodges told us," Nick said. He wanted to put his elbows on the table, but then he would have to take his hands out of his pockets, so he just leaned back further in the seat, letting it cushion around him. That cigarette between his fingers was toast. "You thought you were in control for a while, until you started to figure out who was _really_ running the show. And when you finally realized that Flowers was the con and you were the mark, you didn't tell the police. You definitely didn't tell us. You told Hodges to steal the evidence."

"It would have ruined me if I had told anyone else," Ecklie said.

He bent the cigarette in his fingers, unable to tear it in half with only one hand. Kristy had smoked. After. Just one cigarette. He'd had one with her, and it had tasted pretty good, especially considering how rarely he had one anymore. Ecklie had tried to get him arrested for killing Kristy. The cigarette didn't move when he shifted his fingers.

"Better your life ruined than Greg's life wiped out," Nick said, "but maybe you didn't think about the consequences first."

He hadn't. He hadn't. Martyrs and heroes, that was how he had divided the universe up there on the roof - - there were people like him and there were people like Greg, and now it was too late to explain that there were more types than he'd admitted to, and even Nick wasn't really a person like Nick. Besides, if there were only martyrs and heroes, then where did that leave him?

He hadn't died for a cause, and he hadn't saved anyone.

No, he hadn't considered the consequences, either, but that didn't mean he had to admit that to Ecklie, or sympathize with Ecklie. They weren't the same person, and they didn't have the same problems.

"In retrospect, I wish that I had acted differently." Ecklie said that as if it were some great revelation, something untouchable and _definitely_ worthy enough for him to be forgiven, and this cigarette was absolutely _not _breaking in Nick's hand, and he needed it to. He worried at it, but he didn't want to shred this one, he wanted to snap it in two. No progress.

Nick wondered if he should offer Grissom a cigarette. Grissom's hands were tightening and uncurling on his thighs, flattening hard against the fabric. Grissom didn't have anything to kill, and he looked as if he might not have a problem settling for Ecklie.

"In retrospect," Grissom said, his voice so dangerously quiet that Nick actually moved his chair another inch away, "I wish that you hadn't hired _Matthew Flowers _in the first place."

"I didn't," Ecklie said quickly.

"You didn't _what_?" He hoped no one saw any satisfaction in his face as he finally tore that cigarette apart. It burst, and he dropped it after a second of holding the remains. He reached for another one and toyed it out of the package one centimeter at a time.

"Hire him. I never found him, and I never paid him."

"The lack of payment I can almost understand," Grissom said, and Nick was relieved to hear that his voice sounded slightly more modulated. "But what do you mean by saying that you never found him? Explain it, and very, very carefully, please, Conrad."

Ecklie didn't take to the hint of threat well. His mouth twisted from a straight line into a knot, but he talked anyway. Slowly, but with growing fluency, he told them an interesting story. It took him longer to explain than it took for Nick to kill four more cigarettes in his jacket pocket. His fingers were getting slippery with sweat, and they slid over the paper as he twisted and tugged them apart, occasionally using the rougher edge of his nail to rip it down the side.

The breakdown was simple. Ecklie resented Grissom. He started making plans, imagining how nicely it would go if he could just get Grissom fired. The plans stayed in his head, for the most part, but he made connections without letting himself really know that that was what he was doing. He talked to people, and after a while, people started talking back. He hadn't really focused on Flowers at first, but after a while, he had listened with growing absorption to the stories of the white rose killer. He hadn't expected Flowers to show up, but Flowers had.

"And he never took any money from you," Grissom said, still sounding incredulous.

"I offered to pay him," Ecklie said. "I offered because - - "

"Because the one paying Flowers would be the one controlling Flowers," Nick said. He pressed on the cigarette from both ends. "It's the same thing as with the evidence. You didn't just want to be along for the ride, you wanted the power. If you paid him, you could get him to do whatever you want, and make him _not _do whatever you _didn't _want. You had Hodges steal the evidence and I bet you acted so surprised. What happened, right? You wanted him to get frustrated and take off, but he moved right along with you - - and he killed Greg."

"No one was supposed to die," Ecklie said.

"No one was supposed to die in _your _plan," Grissom agreed, "but you weren't too slow in realizing that it wasn't your plan anymore. You weren't the victim, Conrad. You could have stopped this, and you didn't. That makes you guilty. And you aren't even telling us the whole truth at all."

"Look, I told you everything I know about."

Nick knew what Grissom was thinking of. He found the last cigarette and went to work, imagining that he was killing more than just a leftover pack from his smoking days. He was killing Ecklie, killing Flowers, killing Claberson. Hodges. Lizzie. Whoever.

"You said that you asked around about Flowers and Flowers came," Nick said. "No money, no incentive, and in the terms of the world, you're a nobody. Now why would he come here for you? How would he have even _heard _about you? It's ridiculous."

He took his time on this cigarette. He was going to flay off the paper. Peel it like an apple, and then crush the filter between two fingers. When he was done with it, he could tear apart the box slowly enough to hear the wrapping squeak under his hand. He wiggled a nail under a crease and began to tug. Had to take it slow. Slowly as possible. Because if he finished killing the cigarettes and Ecklie was still right across from him, well, he didn't really know what he'd be left with.

"Maybe he was already in Vegas," Ecklie said. It fell flat in the air, and ended up sounding about as ridiculous as Ecklie's story in the first place, but Nick could tell that at least Ecklie had _believed_ the first part. Now, he was starting to see the holes.

A fringe of tobacco fell against his skin.

"Or maybe he conned you more than you thought," Grissom said. He had stopped making his hands into fists, and he was now squeezing his knees so hard that Nick absently pictured what it would be like if Grissom just snapped his bones. The cracking noise. Another few sprinkles, and he pulled the paper a tiny bit further, needing to take it slow, but also needing _more_.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ecklie said stiffly.

"He's saying that maybe there was someone who _was _paying Flowers. And you wonder why Grissom gets all the respect around here."

Grissom gave him a very short look, a very _measuring _look. Nick dropped his eyes down to the table and tried to concentrate all his energy on the cigarette. It was almost Zen-like, moving it in little circles, rolling it, his hand barely twitching so as not to be obvious. He had come to close there. He didn't want Grissom to ask him to step out of the room, mostly because he didn't want to tell Grissom that he was staying no matter what.

"He told me that I was why he came."

"And you decided that since he was so trustworthy, you just _had _to believe him."

Nick guessed that Grissom's voice was dry right then, but it wasn't his usual sarcastic dryness, even though the sentence had been rich with sarcasm. It was more the kind of dry that started forest fires with too much heat. He hoped Ecklie would be smart enough to realize the difference.

"I didn't have a choice," Ecklie said.

It was hard to avoid the look of mixed disgust and anger on Grissom's face as Grissom stood so quickly that his chair rocked back and the legs clanged against the floor as it fell over. "You had a choice, Conrad. You had a choice from the very beginning. But we didn't, and now two people have lost _all _their choices because _you _didn't make the right one. And no matter _what _Lizzie Zimmer did or did not do, Greg didn't have any choice at all."

Grissom left first, and he just left Nick there, sitting with an empty pack of cigarettes in his pocket, looking at the door with Ecklie. He stood, and picked up Grissom's chair before he left, setting it down so carefully that he almost felt the floor was slanted, and he had to balance the chair so that it didn't fall. Ecklie didn't move, just watched, almost in interest, as if to see whether or not Nick would fling the chair against the wall once he was done dusting it off.

"You wanted to ruin his life," Nick said. His hands were out of his pockets now, and he felt unsteady, unbalanced. "Guess your plan worked out _really _well."

It felt sour, like a punch-line, and he was glad to close the door on Ecklie. Grissom was waiting for him in the hall, almost shaking, running a hand over his face, trembling mouth and bloodshot eyes all covered by his large, tanned hand.

"I warned you about losing control," Grissom said, and his voice was muffled against his skin, "but I couldn't keep mine, either. You did a better job." When he took his hand down, Nick thought that must be the weariest smile he had ever seen. "Any secrets, Nicky?"

Nick put his hand in his right pocket and drew it out in a closed fist, and opened it in front of Grissom's face. The loose tobacco fell out when he parted his fingers, and the swirl of the fans carried the rest off his skin. A fleck of it landed on Grissom's shirt, but Grissom didn't brush it off, just let it sit there, staring at the pieces on the ground, all shredded paper and tobacco, and finally nodded.

"It's good that we left," Nick said, and even to him, his voice sounded too tired, too old, too dead. "I was already on the last one."


	33. Weapon Psyche

Sorry about the delay - - it's been a little hectic, and I've had some computer problems to go along with all the busyness. This is the Flowers chapter, in which we open up his head a little and look around.

Chapter Thirty-three: Weapon Psyche (OTHER)

Flowers drank his forth vanilla Coke and moved one of his red checkers over the financier's black, neatly stealing it and putting it beside his glass. "You don't relax very easily, do you?" Flowers asked. "Really, I'm the one who should be upset. Ecklie doesn't know anything about you, but right now, he's sitting with Gil Grissom, having forensic artists paint my picture while he describes my personality to a tee, and yet, out of the two of us, you're the one who's really bothered."

"It should also bother you that I've thought about killing you," the financier said evenly. "After all, you failed to do anything to Sara Sidle, and your failure to find Ecklie's assistant is _why _everyone knows that you're involved."

"I'm not worried about you killing me."

"Why not?"

"I never die in these situations," Flowers said. "I'm still alive, aren't I?" He waited until the financier moved one checker, and then he jumped. "King me."

"I think we should be playing chess."

"That's stereotypical. Talk to me about David Hodges. I'm impressed with him. He really turned the tables on us, didn't he? Forced us to kill Sanders, and then he went ahead and killed himself, giving away everyone but you. I think it's pretty neat, personally."

"Maybe I should have hired David Hodges."

"You're missing the point, though," Flowers said, and jumped two more checkers. "David Hodges wouldn't have wanted to be your assassin. He would have wanted to be a hero. And heroes always die in the end, whereas, obviously, we won't. It's always the villains that come back for the sequel, anyway. Hodges was always going to die, because he wasn't good enough for glory and he wasn't damned enough for life."

"You see yourself as damned?"

"I think I'll go to hell, yeah."

"I wouldn't have pictured you as believing in God, and then doing the things you do."

"Believing in God is what makes it interesting, sir." Flowers finished his drink. "If there were no God, there would be no sin, and everything I did would be acceptable. If there were no God, there would be no desecration. With God, the things I do take a deeper significance. They aren't just harmful, they're evil. What I did to Sanders wasn't just a crime, it was a monstrosity. And I could love any religion that would describe my actions in such meaningful words."

"Beautiful evil, Flowers?"

"It's magnificent. Killing Sara Sidle will be beautiful. I've never seen a woman so strong and so ready to be destroyed. Lizzie Zimmer was a different matter. She was always a china doll, and shattering her was just too easy. No effort. It was joyless. There was nothing left to destroy the second time around, and precious little the first time."

"And destroying Grissom?"

"Destroying Grissom will be my masterpiece. I haven't even touched him, and his life is falling apart. When I kill the girl he's too afraid to love, it will break him."

All this talk of mayhem was making him hungry, and he ordered another sandwich. The waitress smiled at him, and he gave her revealing neckline an approving look, and grinned back. She giggled, and refilled his Coke without him asking first. Her hand brushed against his, and she giggled again.

"Insipid," Flower said, when she walked away, "but I do love attention. What I was saying - - about Grissom - - have you ever seen the look on someone's face when you cross the last of their boundaries and ruin the last of their lives? When they have nothing left because you've taken everything and not even bothered to treasure it, just ended it, crushed it like a sand castle because you _wanted_ to? Ever seen that look, when all they want to know is why you couldn't even love what they loved enough to make it worthwhile? The confusion at how pointless it all is?"

"Eloquent. I've seen my share of looks."

"I'm not surprised. And that's why we'll win, sir. Because there's no sand castles for them to take away from me, to continue the metaphor. I came from nothing. I have nothing. There's nothing in my life they could destroy that I haven't ruined already."

He had formulated this theory years ago - - he would not die, because he had no reason to be alive. He was a catastrophe waiting to happen, a crisis born and aimed in the right direction. Little League and Boy Scouts didn't make him a human being. He'd killed that from which he came, left behind dead parents and scattered report cards like leaflets on the floor of a burned house, and recreated himself in his own image, brilliant and strong, a shell with nothing inside but a clear, savage joy. And instinct. He was a surgeon, knowing where to cut either to save or to kill, and he killed, and killed, and killed. It amused him. It filled up his hollow spaces. He stole from the poor and raped the chaste and killed the people that loved their lives. He desecrated and burned and when it was done, he stood on the ashes and decided what it meant, because it had to mean something.

If there were no God, he was dancing on the grave of the world for nothing. Flowers preferred to believe in divine retribution. It would give him something to look forward to. If not, he was pointless. A random blip on the radar, a genetic mistake, a chemical accident. God meant that he had lost his soul. God provided an explanation.

And so hell was there, but he wouldn't see it. He stood above the crust of the earth and didn't die, just went on living despite the guilt that should eat away at him, but didn't. Despite the atrocities, he lived and laughed and drank Coke and played checkers just like everyone else. And the waitress was smiling at him from across the diner.

"Was there every anything in your life?"

"Psychoanalysis of me would be pointless, all due respect. I was never beaten, I was never abused, I was never spoiled. I was loved in all the appropriate ways and punished in all the right moments. I have no medical problems, no nightmares, no lingering regrets. I do what I do and then I move on."

"Someone born and made for destruction," the financier mused, sipping at his drink. "A weapon waiting for the right hand."

He felt smooth, felt polished. The financier's weapon, crafted and pointed, thrown into the chaos to create order in a series of orchestrated death. Nothing that lived could be so beautiful. Greg Sanders was just a case in point. No man still walking around could have created so much attention as the still figure, cruciform, bleeding slowly and still dying when the nails went into his hands. Life was short but death was forever, and Flowers was sure that meant that death was more powerful.

Flowers closed his eyes.

"Whose hand it is doesn't matter, sir," he said, almost in a whisper. "I just need - -"

That was weakness, and he had told himself long ago never to show weakness. Not even to someone like the financier, or _especially_ to someone like the financier. After all, the financier used. He killed and used, and if Grissom's collapse would be Flower's masterpiece, it would still have been the financier's idea. All he had been ready to say was that he only needed any hand, to point and guide and _tell _him, _make_ him, _show_ him, show him what to wreck and what to ruin. All he had meant to say was that although he could destroy well enough on his own, he was made to be someone's gun, someone's knife, someone's instrument of death.

The financier had been the one to find him, the one to drag him out of bars in Atlanta with the smells of cigarette smoke and hashish, had been the one to show the thick wad of bills, and the one to say, "I am going to show you what to do."

It was like the hand of God had touched Matthew Flowers on the shoulder. He had been a missile in need of a target, and now he was pointed and ready, racing for the finish line.

_This doesn't stop until it's over,_ he thought, his mouth thick with the old tastes of blood and want. _This doesn't stop until everything Gil Grissom loves is dead. Nuclear fallout. No survivors. This is the reason for my existence. I'm ready._

"What do you need?"

He wouldn't. He couldn't. He _was _nothing, so he _needed_ nothing. Needs were something that could be taken away and used to destroy him. He wouldn't allow that. He had to be immune from destruction. If he told the financier how much he needed the target, then there would be something that could make him die, in the end.

_I am nothing. I need nothing. Blank space. A weapon in a waiting hand._

"An opportunity," he said, with a sunshine-bright smile from ear to ear. "All I need is some sheep's clothing to get my hands on Sara Sidle." He stood before the financier could answer, and added, "You know where to find me when you get an idea."

There was nothing to take away from him. He was a series of empty spaces. Weapons didn't have souls.

The waitress smiled at him, and he looked at her hungrily, drinking her in with his eyes. She was pretty enough in a way that was something between Lizzie's cheap, Dresden-doll prettiness and Sara Sidle's strong, impenetrable beauty. Her hair was too platinum to be real, and her glossy nails were just a fraction of an inch too long, and Flowers imagined blue cuticles underneath the bubblegum pink paint.

_You're a corpse waiting to happen_, he thought.

"Have a nice night, sir," she said, in her candy-coated voice. It matched her uniform, all sugary stripes and cheerful daisy pins.

"Oh yeah," Flowers said, "you too."


	34. Hotel Paper

I have to make an apology for the week-plus wait between chapters, but I was hit with a bad writer's block bug on this story, and trying to deal with a block and a case of strep throat at the same time is _not fun at all_. But I've been more than happy to come back to this little screwed-up world, and this time, it's a Sara chapter. Refresher: last time we _saw _Sara, she had found Hodges's body. Last time we _heard_ about Sara: Nick had asked her to go looking for Claberson. That's where we're picking up.

Chapter Thirty-four: Hotel Paper (SARA)

Abraham Claberson had paid for an expensive hotel room. The mini-bar itself could have supplied enough glossily-wrapped packs of peanuts and shiny-papered chocolate bars to get Sara through World War III. There was a massive bath sunk in the floor - - tile that looked like authentic marble - - and a bed with starched five-hundred-thread-count sheets that felt like butter underneath her fingers. And throughout the flawless room, he was nowhere to be seen. His suitcases were sitting on the bed, half-packed with folded shirts and jackets, and his shoes were resting underneath the coffee table, but Claberson himself had disappeared.

"Molecular impossibility," Sara said wearily, sitting down on the bed. "He has to be _somewhere_."

At least she hadn't come into the room and seen Abraham Claberson swinging back and forth like a pendulum from the ceiling, food for the crows.

Nick had asked her to cover for him on finding Claberson, and she had agreed, mainly because she wanted to assuage whatever had gone wrong between them earlier. But now, she wished that she had said no, wished that she'd not only asked but demanded that Nick go out and find Claberson on his own, and she could have been back in the lab, where everything was just another shade of familiar, and she could have talked to Grissom. She was sick to death of loose ends and bodies.

The death toll was climbing.

Hodges was dead. Hodges, who had been trying to follow the wrong road to the right thing. Hodges had died slowly, choking to death in his own living room with a rope cutting into his windpipe and taking breath away from him one minute at a time. His hands had probably clawed at the rope encircling his neck. He had probably wished, near the end, for the pain to stop, for the death to be quicker, for _anything _to end well - - and then he had died.

And Greg - - Greg was dead. Which was ridiculous, of course, because it was _Greg_, and people like Greg didn't die. _Couldn't _die. Except he had, and so horribly that she couldn't even bring herself to picture his death. It just flickered in between memories, like a changeover in a movie. Greg was teasing her, his eyes interested and playful as he held the results just a centimeter out of her reach, and then, Greg was pinned to plywood, hands flattened against splinters and lips damp and silky with his own blood. Greg had been younger than Sara, and now he was never even going to see the other side of thirty. He'd found the only way to stay young forever, the only route to the Fountain of Youth, and she'd thought all of this and rubbed it like salt into all the hurtful, grieving corners of her mind, so why could she still not cry for him? He had been _stolen_. He had been torn out of a world in which he was their Puck and their mascot for undestroyed innocence, and crucified in a parking lot because of a mistake.

Her eyes were dry. They were dry. She made a strangled noise in her throat and kicked outwards, her feet tangling in the sheets, and she slid down to the floor. Nothing changed. It was as if she were made of wood and even her fall had been designed by some puppeteer. Her sobs were coughs, one hand on her stomach and the other on her cheek, ready to wipe away tears that would never come.

Sara had spent too long teaching herself not to cry.

She rose shakily, her legs quivering. The room seemed to twirl around her, the windows looking out at the Strip becoming a blur of sunshine and neon lights. After a moment of planting her feet in the plush carpet, her head stilled.

_Work it out, Sara, _Grissom said in her mind. _Read the room_.

"He was either packing or unpacking," she said, touching the smooth fabric of the shirts in his suitcase. "Some stuff in the closet, some on the bed, some in here."

So how did she tell? What did people always pack and unpack last? She grinned as she thought of her answer, at least - - toothbrush. Since the first impulse on settling into a room wasn't to take care of dental hygiene, toothbrushes and toothpaste were usually left to be put away later. She checked the bathroom and saw that Claberson's toothbrush was balanced by the sink in a tiny puddle of water. The sink itself was still damp.

"He didn't leave that long ago," she said, reasoning it out. If he had, the water around his toothbrush might still be present, but the remaining condensation in the sink would have dripped down the drain and disappeared if it hadn't been used in the last few hours. "So he was packing again - - probably after the media found out about Greg - - and someone interrupted him."

_Flowers?_

"No. There's no disorder. He chose to leave."

_So is he dead?_

"I don't know. If he is, he didn't die here. It's too neat."

_Maybe that's the point. Maybe the order was created out of the chaos. Maybe Claberson _is _dead, and someone else did a great clean-up job._

She frowned, and moved back into the main room to check the rest of the situation. The bedcovers were smooth, unwrinkled, almost steam-dried. Abraham Claberson had slept on this bed, probably, but it had then been made up by one of the cleaning staff. The curtains were open, letting in a shock of light over the furniture. It gave the whole room a nuclear glow. The television set was turned off, and the remote was resting by Claberson's bed.

"So, last night, he watched some TV before he went to sleep," she said, "and then he woke up this morning - - showered - - and checked the news."

He had seen the focus on the death outside of the crime lab. The press wouldn't have been able to show Greg's body, because by then, it had been taken inside, and Sara herself had been there, denying comments right and left - - but she had given them Greg's identity, at least. And Claberson had probably been smart enough to piece it together. He must have known enough of Flowers's plan to figure out that Greg's death had been part of the puzzle, and not just a side-note.

"But if he knew the plan," Sara said, "then he would have known that killing Greg wasn't supposed to be part of it. So he figured out that something went wrong, and he wanted to hit the hills before Flowers came to find _him_."

He started packing. Then something happened.

She checked the pad of hotel paper by the remote, and saw what she needed to see: a note. Not the suicide novel that Warrick and Catherine had recovered from Hodges's apartment, but a message.

_Nick Stokes / Lindsey / Catherine Willows? Check._

_Deal with Flowers & other, compromise. SS is who F & Co wants, offer._

SS. Sara Sidle. She sat down on the bed, cradling the paper in her hands. Flowers wanted her - - Flowers and - - someone. Ecklie? But why wouldn't Claberson have named Ecklie as a conspirator instead of avoiding him? He'd pointed out Flowers as present, but Ecklie wasn't mentioned at all. Flowers was accompanied by _Other_. And the inclusion of Nick, Catherine, and Lindsey didn't help her growing unease - - were they going to be targeted?

She flipped the page and saw the careful lines of printing squashed together, and began to read aloud so quickly that she stumbled over the words.

"If anyone finds this, then Matthew Flowers hasn't reached this room yet, or this message would have been destroyed. My name is Abraham Claberson and I was hired last year to serve as a lawyer and present Gil Grissom with what I knew to be false charges. I agreed. But I can't be a part of this anymore because Elizabeth Zimmer is dead and I know now what I suspected for some time before - - _I know who really raped Elizabeth when we were in school together _and - -"

The door to the hotel room swung open, and Sara looked up.

" - - and that's why this has to end now," she finished, looking at him.

Matthew Flowers smiled warmly. "I couldn't agree more," he said, and reached out to take the pad of paper away from her, and then pressed the barrel of the gun against her cheekbone. Sara closed her eyes, but she couldn't stop listening. "Funny," Flowers said. "I didn't actually think he'd be smart enough to piece it together and then _leave_. Pretty good idea, actually. I came here to kill him and instead I find you. Ironic, isn't it, Miss Sidle? You're the one he offered to he wouldn't have to die. Well, that was before the real problem, though."

The gun was warm. She was cold, her muscles stiff. All those years of hand-to-hand combat training and she couldn't move when it really, really counted.

"Even manipulative bastards like Abraham Claberson have a breaking point," Flowers said, "and in his case, it was Zimmer. Now he's after me, not that I'm worried. I've dealt with plenty of men who found out that I raped their girlfriends. Claberson doesn't really matter, but while I'm at it, I might as well kill two birds with one stone, right? I just can't believe that sleeping with the woman he loved was worse for Claberson than killing her, but I suppose it's human nature. Something I'll never understand. He hated what I took from Zimmer. She couldn't ever love him again after I did what I did in Harvard. She couldn't love anyone, ever again. Now, aren't you glad I killed her? Someone who can't love is just - - just a waste. And trust me, I should know. I wonder if Gil Grissom will be the same way."

His lips were against her ear. Smooth, warm. His voice was almost gentle.

"You know him better," Flowers said. "What will bother him more when he finds your body? That I killed you . . . or that I did what he never could do first?"

The hand that wasn't holding the gun glided down her back, over the slight indentation that marked her spine, and over her shoulder blades, tracing every wrinkle in her shirt.

"Don't take it personally," he said softly, "this is just all that I've ever done."

He kissed her neck right at the pulse, and Sara didn't know whether or not to be grateful that he didn't just kill her then and end it all, as his mouth moved down to her collarbone and his spare hand wrapped around to touch the slope of her hips.

The gun didn't even tremble in his hand.


	35. The Lawyer's Confession

Wow. It's been a while - - a _long _while - - and I can't say how sorry I am. I haven't been writing much of anything, lately, so this story wasn't neglected anymore than anything else - - but I had a startling case of writer's block, and I tried to break it by experimenting through different fandoms and different mediums, and, after writing some shockingly bad poetry and rereading the last few chapters - - I think I've picked this up on the right track again. And are we in the last inning now, or what? Bottom of the ninth, and we have - - Nick. Then, I think, Warrick, Flowers, Catherine, Grissom, and . . . the epilogue. It may be a little extended, but that's the basic plan.

Again, I sincerely apologize about the wait, and I only hope that this chapter and the ones that follow it can, at least partially, make up for it.

- - - - - -

Chapter Thirty-five: The Lawyer's Confession (NICK)

- - - - - -

Abraham Claberson had lost weight since Nick had first met him. Far from seeming like one of Those People, Claberson now looked as if he had recently escaped from some Third World country. His expensive suit hung on his body like so much loose skin, and his eyes has lost the glimmer of brilliance, and were instead dull from lack of sleep. All of his shine had rubbed off - - and that, Nick thought, half-asleep himself, was the beauty of Las Vegas: it could destroy what was formerly so beautiful. Robert Frost: nothing gold can stay.

Claberson looked everything but golden now. He was shaking, his hands clamped to his upper arms so tightly that Nick could count the ribbons of flesh through his fingers. The suit puffed around him, enlarged by the pressure and the loss of weight. Claberson was hollow.

Nick said, "Tell me everything."

Claberson licked his lips. "He'll kill me. If I tell you, he'll kill me."

"Who, Flowers? Flowers will kill you anyway."

Claberson jerked his head to both sides, and for a moment, Nick wasn't sure if the man was telling him no, or if he was having a seizure. "No, no, not Flowers. Flowers won't kill me. Flowers won't kill me because I told _him_, but what I tell _you _will make _him_ kill me. Dr. Grissom."

"Grissom?"

Grissom was watching them now, from behind the glass. Nick didn't have to be told this to know. It was like someone's cold hand on the back of his neck, Grissom's eyes on him. Grissom had let him be the one to question Claberson when Claberson had stumbled into the station, looking disheveled and generally pathetic, but Nick had no illusions about what Grissom thought of his capabilities. Grissom was watching. Big Brother, right? Behind the glass.

Nick fought the urge to look behind him. "Grissom's not here."

"You'll tell him."

Nick pushed his hands against the table, not hard enough to call it a strike. "Fuck, man, you have to tell me _something_. You're an accessory to two murders!"

"Three," Claberson said. "There were three."

He hadn't slept for the last two days, and his mind made the only connection it could through the haze. He saw the hanged man swinging back and forth in his vision like a pendulum, and said, dazed, "Hodges? Hodges didn't kill himself?"

"He did," Claberson said. "He got it over with, I suppose." He smiled emptily at Nick, and the expression was eerily unsettling. It was as if there were nothing there, as if the last of Claberson had finally vacated the building. "And your wedding. Your brother - - you were never going to a wedding," he said, slowly. "You were investigating Elizabeth."

"Zimmer, yeah."

"I loved her."

"And Flowers killed her," Nick said, unable or unwilling to summon compassion for Claberson right now. His head was still hurting with too many memories of Greg. "So tell us what you can, so we can catch the bastard and put him where he belongs."

"I was at Harvard with her," Claberson continued, as if Nick had never spoken. "I was there. I was seeing her when it happened - - when she was raped. She broke my heart." Claberson made a lazy crisscrossing gesture over his chest. "And I was there when Dr. Grissom was there, you know. And your - - your Sara Sidle. I went to the seminar, because Elizabeth wanted to go."

"You went to Grissom's seminar?"

"I _saw_," Claberson said. "Everyone saw, but I knew what it _meant_."

There were no cigarettes left to shred. His hands dug into his pockets in frustration, unable to find anything to tear. His fingers pushed into soft fabric, and he fought to keep his composure. So damn frustrating, though, not being able to get anything out of him, as if Claberson were not a person but a music box, who could only come to the right notes in the song at the right time. And nothing he could say could make Claberson play faster. Nothing. He had wound him up, and the key was spinning, but the tune needed to be forwarded. He needed to know why Claberson had come into custody.

"Everyone saw _what_?" he said, his voice low, and painful.

"How he looked at her."

"How - - how Griss looked at Lizzie? You thought that he might have been the one to - -"

"Dr. Grissom didn't even see Elizabeth," Claberson said dismissively. "He couldn't have. He was looking at her. At Sara Sidle."

Of course, Nick thought, too weary to care, everything would come down to that. No wonder Claberson knew that he was doomed and damned either way. How could he walk into Grissom's custody and explain what he had just explained and expect anything else? All of the pieces - - were together now. Everything fit into place. And the thing that revolted him the most was that he couldn't even summon enough energy to be surprised, let alone revolted. He had finally reached the notes in the song that he had been waiting for, and that much-anticipated melody had fallen curiously flat on his ears.

"You told Flowers," Nick said. "You told him that Grissom loved her. Like drawing a target on Achilles's heel, wasn't it? To save your own neck."

"Three murders," Claberson said, "three. Or maybe two - - maybe he hasn't yet. But he will. He wanted to do it, he told me. He wanted to crucify one and burn another . . . he said that was the old way of sacrifice . . ."

The glass behind Nick rattled, and he closed his eyes.

"Grissom," he whispered, and, as if he had called instead of simply known, Grissom came into the room with the suddenness of a hurricane, his eyes gleaming with fury. Grissom would have grabbed Claberson by his shirt, probably, and thrown him against the wall, but Nick inserted himself between the two of them almost effortlessly, almost without thinking at all, and all of Grissom's weight hit him. Grissom swung into him like a pendulum, and bent him back over the table until his elbows struck against the metal and rattled his funny bone all the way up in a hideously shrill pain.

Claberson skittered back to the wall, and Nick thought: _Coward_.

The sudden intensity of his disgust hurt him all the more because it was the only emotion he had felt in hours, and he pushed into Grissom, hands flat against his boss's chest until Grissom was shoved off him.

Oh, this wasn't the job for him and he should have left a long time ago. Not smart enough or emotionally disconnected enough to impress Grissom, the one person he had wanted so badly to impress. Not skilled enough to rise through the ranks with the speed his family had hoped for. Not even charming enough to have started a family already and had a refuge in the inevitable storm. And now, he was too embittered by all of it, too lost at sea to be anyone else's anchor, and too dead to start hoping that he would live. He had seen countless dead bodies and now, one crucifixion, and in the end, it had torn him to pieces. Too tender-hearted in the beginning, and too disheartened now.

And after all of that, was he finally what Grissom had wanted from him? Was he finally Grissom, too jaded to feel? Standing there with his hands at his sides and nothing but a curled knot of disgust to fill him up inside, he thought that maybe, yes, this had been it.

He had prayed for this severance, this devotion to duty-and-nothing-but-duty. He was one of Those People, glaring at Grissom with Claberson behind him, cowering. The intersection between fury and madness. Everything that they had wanted him to be.

He thought again, that same old thought from the airport, with all the humor removed and the bitterness washed away by emptiness and time:

_I want to be Gil Grissom when I grow up._

He said, flatly, "You gonna find her or just stand here?"

Grissom looked at him and Nick couldn't read his expression. Oh, most of it was still caught up in Sara, sure, and there was still that wounded fury and lover's hurt, but there was something else there, too. A sudden fear - - and then a sad, growing awareness. A recognition, as if he were Grissom's mirror instead of himself.

"Where," Grissom said, not a question, and not at him, but at Claberson. He was still staring at Nick, though, and Nick took the brunt of that icy rage.

Claberson said an address that Nick barely caught but Grissom apparently registered it, because Nick could practically see the cogs whirring away as Grissom filed the information in his mind.

Grissom turned on his heel, and Nick said, "I'm coming with you."

He patted the gun at his side, reassuring himself with its weight and its presence. His stomach didn't flip-flop in nervous anticipation or fear, as he had expected it would. Too far removed now, as if he needed more confirmation of _that_. He thought about Warrick and Catherine for a moment, and then dismissed the idea of calling them to come along. They were probably safer going over Hodges's case, if anyone was safe in this mess anymore. Two cowboys were enough to rescue one damsel in distress from one black hat villain, or at least they were in the movies.

He felt blissfully, terribly calm. No fear, no doubt, no remaining insecurities. Just a growing numbness that seemed to be spreading all the way down through this new identity. Good old Nick Stokes, who simply wasn't That Guy anymore, and couldn't be That Guy ever again. And wouldn't Greg be so ashamed of him, now?

But Greg was dead.


	36. What We Do

- - - - - - - - -

Chapter Thirty-six: What We Do (WARRICK)

- - - - - - - - -

He was brushing for prints on Hodges's dresser when Catherine's cell phone rang so loudly that it jarred him into spilling powder all over the wood, making a snowfall of brilliant pink over the mahogany. He swore, and wiped his hand through it - - there went any potential prints to hope for, not that he had ever thought of finding any interesting ones. This, for once, seemed to be a textbook suicide, but despite all of that, there was protocol to be followed. He only hoped that Nick was doing a better job of tracking down Claberson than he and Catherine were doing of finishing off this case completely.

"Willows," Catherine said into the phone. There was a silence, trailing. "Are you sure? Oh my God. Okay, we'll be right - - _yes_. Dammit, Nicky, don't argue with me, I can't just - - "

Warrick stopped trying to brush the powder away and froze. There were too many things to think about - - too many jobs he was now glad he didn't have - - and all he could see was Greg pinned to plywood and a telephone pole, only behind his closed eyes, Greg looked like Nick, or Sara, or Grissom. Anyone but Catherine, who was bright and real and within his reach. He touched her wrist, eyes still closed. He didn't have the strength to banish his nightmare by letting in the light. He deserved these nightmares.

"What's happening?"

He didn't recognize his own voice. It was too hoarse. Unreal. But wasn't everything?

Catherine cupped a hand over her phone. He couldn't read anything in her expression, and found himself thinking of the first time he had seen _Halloween_ as a kid, when the Shatner mask on Michael Myers with its bland features and clean expanse of nothingness had been the scariest thing he'd ever seen and the scariest thing he thought he ever _would _see. Catherine looked like a mask. Catherine looked like old fears and Warrick had too many new ones.

"Sara's missing," she said. "It's Flowers."

"Nick - -"

"Is looking for her. Nick and Grissom," Catherine said, her mouth becoming a thin line. She'd worn lipstick in the morning but it had all been bitten away, sucked off by nervous habits and time. Warrick caught a faint line of cherry on her upper tooth. It made her look careless and human and too vulnerable. "Grissom's back. He's been cleared - - Covallo said - -"

"I don't care what Covallo said." He tore the phone out of her hand. "Nick, what the hell is going on?"

Nick's voice crackled in his ear. "Just what she told you. Sara's missing. We're looking for her. Unless you want to end up taking more pictures of someone you loved pinned up like some kind of dissection project, you'll let me get off this phone so I can pay attention to where we're going."

Funny how it was Nick's voice, and not Catherine's pronouncement, that made the whole thing sink into him. When Greg had died - - the realization had come only because he could _look_ at Greg's death, and analyze it. Sara was nowhere in reach, and Warrick had never been particularly good at making something real out of just a few words. Catherine's blankness hadn't helped him, but Nick - -

He had known Nick longer. He had watched football and drank beer with Nick before Greg or Catherine had really been part of their lives. He knew every crease in Nick's expression, every stain on his couch, every snack in his kitchen . . . he knew all the petty likes and dislikes that stacked up to make Nick human. He knew Nick so well that it almost became tiresome: Nick never surprised him anymore. Everything he said had been mapped out years before by a hint or a promise. Everything he did was nothing less than what Warrick expected him to do. Nigel Crane had scared the shit out of him, true, and when he'd thought that Nick could die - - well, that had never been part of the game plan. But even that fear had eroded over time, and watching Nick closely afterwards had only solidified what he already thought he knew: Nick did not change. Nick was what Nick was, and what Nick was . . . was Nick.

The voice on the line had Nick's cadence. It had that faint, almost unrecognizable drawl that he had nearly stopped hearing over the years. But the spirit behind it was what made things real, because. . .

Because it was new.

There was nothing else of Nick that he recognized. There was no hope. There was no reassurance. All that was there was a kind of existential tiredness, and a certainty that Nick had always lacked. The lack of confidence that had always shortened his steps at every turn was missing, as if it had been sheared clean away. This was not a Nick who doubted what he could be.

This was a Nick who had carefully looked in some invisible mirror, seen exactly who he was, and decided that who he was wasn't enough. That he was not good enough and would give up trying.

_Nick's stopped_, Warrick thought, with a dryness in his mouth that seemed to scorch his tongue. _He's done. Finished. Clocked out. He's never going to be Nick again._

_And Sara _- -

He couldn't. Couldn't and didn't want to. There were so many things that he could scream into the phone. It wasn't Grissom's case, it was his. He had been placed in charge of the investigation and it was his job to see it through to the end, no matter how bitter that end was. He resented being placed aside. He hated the fact that they followed him when their precious Grissom was down-and-out and pushed him in the corner the second Grissom moved back into the court. But who was he kidding? He'd follow Grissom first, too, trust Grissom before he'd trust himself.

And there was Sara. And if he knew that Grissom loved her, how could he say to his boss - - to his mentor - - to his _hero _- - _"Stand aside, this was my case first and I want to finish it?"_

He said to this new Nick, "Don't do anything stupid."

He'd meant it seriously, meant it as a warning, but it came out sounding lame and flat, like a punch-line that hadn't quite come off. Too cliché, too every-cop-movie-ever. It was next to "Don't do anything I wouldn't do" in the bag of cheesy remarks. He closed his eyes once more to let Catherine's surprised expression slide over into black, and bit down on his lip when he heard Nick's pause. He waited for something to happen.

It was new, this anticipation. How many years had it been since he hadn't known what Nick would say? Hadn't even had a _clue_?

Before, it would have been, _"Well - - _yeah, _Warrick - - why do you think I'm going instead of you?" _and the drawl would have come out just a little more with the emphasis, and the whole thing would have been hiding a laugh. No matter how stressed Nick was, that's what Warrick would have gotten from him. A smile . . . a line . . . and a wholehearted reassurance that Nick would do everything he could do.

_Don't do anything stupid_.

Nick took it as meant, seriously. Through the silence that wasn't silence - - the silence that was fuzzy with lengthy static - - Warrick could hear him thinking.

"You know," Nick said finally, "it's a little too late for someone to say that. To any of us." He hardly waited before saying, in the same quiet voice, "Goodbye, Warrick."

The silence that had been static became velvet-smooth and black.

Warrick closed the phone in his hand and gave it back to Catherine. She took it wordlessly and slid it into her purse with just two fingers, as if she didn't quite want to touch it.

"He wants us to stay here," she said. Her mouth twisted, and again, he caught that little glimmer of lipstick on her teeth. "He says that they have enough to worry about without wondering where we've gone - - you know, without the officers around to look out for us - - " She hit something, hard, and Warrick had to follow the white-streak path of her hand to realize that it was the bed. She collapsed backwards on it, her hair almost highlighting the drab gray cover, and looked at him.

To his relief, she wasn't a mask anymore. He could see her. He still knew every line of Catherine. Frustration in the tightness of her lips. Anger in the color of her eyes. Fear in the way she held her arms to her chest. Desperation in her slumped posture. Catherine was still Catherine, at least.

"It's how he said it, Warrick. Like we're things to be looked after. Like we couldn't take care of ourselves. He's . . . he's _younger _than me."

The warped logic almost made him laugh. He sat down beside her, comforted by her familiarity, and touched a hand to her hair.

"He's not himself, Cath," he said softly. "He's really not."

She turned her head to look at him, and he marked down "worry" as another appearing emotion. "I've never heard him talk like that before. He sounded - - he didn't sound like Nick. Grissom, maybe, but not Nick. Not our Nick."

Warrick thought about memorizing Nick over long afternoons and longer double-shifts until these new tones and reactions were resented instead of just unfamiliar. He thought about watching Catherine see new men with a little hard knot of jealousy in his stomach, even if he was never sure if he even wanted to see her that way. He thought about the secret stash of memories and compliments from Grissom that his mind had built almost without his permission. The hatred he had felt at seeing Greg not only killed but also somehow _defiled_. The fear at knowing that Sara was gone . . . the fear that was so total and wave-like in its power that it washed stray recollections on his mind like seashells. And now, Catherine's odd phrase (_our Nick_) with that same resentment he'd had, as if Nick had no right to change, not when they'd expected him to be constant for the rest of their lives.

_How possessive love can be_, he thought. He untangled two strands of her hair.

"If Sara dies, Grissom's finished," Catherine said.

Warrick nodded. "I think that's the plan. We thought we were protecting him, and we just - - we set ourselves up like dominos for Flowers to knock us down."

"So what do we do?"

"We wait," he said. "Maybe Nick's right. Maybe we shouldn't give him any chances to hurt Grissom by using us. So - - we wait."

"For what?"

He examined her tone for humor and couldn't find any. No trace. She just sounded tired and curious, as if she honestly couldn't guess when they would leave. _We wait for them to call us again_, he started to say, or _for us to see something on the news_, or _for Sara to be dead_, or _for us to believe they'll be okay. _Or even, cruelly, _for things to be back to normal_.

"For it to be over," he said. "Either way - - good or bad - - I think we wait for it to be finished."

"I want to go after them."

Her announcement startled him, when he thought that he'd made everything so clear. When he'd drawn all the lines and connected the points for her to see that constellation: _don't let them hurt us anymore, _he'd thought, as if he wasn't Warrick and she wasn't Catherine, but the night shift lived and breathed as a single actual _thing_, and all was plural and possessive. He didn't care if he ended up dead. His life had lost its own value through some kind of cosmic mark-down, but he cared if it would hurt anyone. He cared about the strangeness in Nick and the wildness in Grissom.

"I know," Catherine said, off his look. "I know we shouldn't. I know it's wrong. But it's right, too."

_Eloquent_. His hand was caught in her hair, and he tugged it free as gently as possible. _Not a persuasive speech at all, Cath, but I know what you mean. Because possessive love means that possession comes first - - so we keep them. We keep them, even if we hurt them._

_So hurt them._

_So let them hurt, but we'll keep them._

_We'll keep them alive if we have to kill them to do it._

It would hurt too much for him to laugh, but he wanted to. What a wonderful thing was love. What a really beautiful thing. What a sacrifice it was to love someone so much that you didn't care how much they hurt as long as they were still there to love. What really lovely pain.

So he would keep Sara, Grissom, Nick, and Catherine at all costs. He would keep them even if they hated to be kept, even if they despised him for keeping them. He'd keep them forever, the way he hadn't been able to keep Greg. What mattered was life - - and love. That mattered more than right and wrong. He almost wasn't sure anymore that he knew the difference between those two, no more than he knew the difference between life and love.

He stood and pulled her with him up off the bed, his hand wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet. He could feel her pulse increase.

"So what do we do?" she asked again.

"We follow them," he said, and tossed the keys at her in a graceless arc. "You drive."


	37. There But for the Grace

- - - - - - - - -

Chapter Thirty-seven: There But for the Grace (SARA)

- - - - - - - - -

He raped her once with the lights on and again with the lights off, which was worse, because she couldn't see what was happening and didn't know what to expect.

When it was over, he dressed, poured himself a glass of orange juice, and sat at the edge of the bed, stroking her hair and her handcuffs while he talked in a low, soothing voice about the things he had done to her, the things he had done to Lizzie Zimmer, and the things he had done to Greg. He told her about when he had visited Boston on a whim in 1998. He had wanted to see a real winter; to wear a scarf; to see the history embedded in brick; to walk the campus; to eat breakfast in small cafés. What he told her was that he had never really had any intentions of doing anything particularly violent or illegal in Boston.

"It's rare that I plan in advance," Flowers said, trailing one fingertip down the side of her face as if tracing the path of the tears she'd refused to cry. "You might feel special."

Matthew Flowers had liked Boston, and stayed longer than he had originally intended. Even with his extension, he was still scheduled to leave the day after Gil Grissom came to lecture at Harvard. Flowers didn't attend the seminar, but he was on campus when Lizzie came out of the building. She had been wrapped up in a thick blue coat and an unraveling knitted black scarf, and Flowers had left his secondhand paperback on the table and followed her. Their footsteps, he told Sara, had crunched in the snow. She had turned and smiled at him, and Flowers had smiled back - - that nice boy's smile, all polite, with just a hint of confidence and just a hint of sexual eagerness. He had looked only a shade too old for his surroundings - - perhaps a teaching assistant - - and he was attractive.

She had waited for him. Happy with her boyfriend Abraham "Lincoln" Claberson or not, she had waited for Matthew Flowers to catch up with her.

"If she hadn't - - who knows? I might have left her alone. It was cold outside, that day. I'm sure that you remember how cold that winter was. Did Dr. Grissom give you his coat before he walked you to your building? Or did he not walk you at all? Did he stand there, and look at you as if he had a thousand ideas and not a thousandth of the strength it would take to act on even one of them?"

Sara looked at the tiles on the ceiling and tried to pretend as if he were not right. As if Flowers were never right, as if his very immorality guaranteed it would be impossible for him to see into her and Grissom with such unconscious ease.

"I've been wondering about you since I heard that you were at that seminar. What would have happened if _you _had come out? If I had seen _you_. . . it wouldn't have mattered how cold it was, or how it snowed. It wouldn't have mattered if you hadn't smiled back at me. I would have followed you to the end of the earth, Sara Sidle. You're so much harder to break."

He drew his hand across her eyes. His skin was warm.

"See, you aren't even crying."

Lizzie had waited for him, and the two of them had walked off-campus. She had accepted his offer of a drink with no hesitation. He had bought her one, then another, and then a third. Her tolerance had been low. When he had slid her hand under her skirt, she had offered only perfunctory resistance. Outside, in the hurtfully cold snow, her slurred voice had grown louder, in protest, but by then it was late, and there was no one left to stop and hear her. So Flowers had hurt her again and again in the snow, his breath warm against her neck and the rape heated enough to thaw the ice around them both until he left her in a bank of blood and melted frost.

"When the - - when Ecklie talked to me, I made all of my contacts through Claberson. She never saw me - - until I came into her room that night. She didn't recognize me. Too many years of blocking the memories, I suppose, and too many years of therapy. Besides, my hair was dark when I was in Boston. Still, I was just a little hurt. But it was our reunion, so we relived what we did the day that we met."

When he raped Sara this time, the lights were on again and she could watch him, so she did.

He was oddly gentle, as if only her lack of consent was stopping him from making love. But still, it hurt. He was taking her. The tenderness was just another way to make her feel used - - it was a parody of what she'd hoped to have with Grissom. She couldn't concentrate on the pain and she couldn't concentrate on his melodrama.

She concentrated on him.

Disconnected, she memorized him. Not with love, the way she had memorized Grissom, but from hate. She would know every flaw on his body, every connection, every habit, every feature. And he had frustratingly few of each. He was attractive; well-spoken; educated; dramatic; cruel; depraved. So were a million others. Aside from what she knew about him and what she learned underneath him, he was almost impossibly opaque, as if he wasn't really a person at all, but something crafted and melded. Unblemished. Pure impurity.

He touched her cheek.

"You can pretend that I'm Grissom."

She turned her head away and bit her lip, but for the first time, she wasn't able to stifle the scream. Her eyes grew wet and she kept them closed. She was not going to cry for him. She was not going to let Grissom's name do for her what the pain had not.

"No? Nick Stokes?"

_Nick_. She kept her eyes closed and her face turned away from him. His hands were on her hips and then one was in her hair, tangling the strands instead of combing them. _I can't, I can't. Nick. Someone come and get me_, she thought - - almost prayed. It was the first time she had ever prayed for rescue in her life, and in the end, it was shame that brought the tears down her cheeks. _Someone help me._

"Warrick Brown," Flowers said musingly, trying her. "Greg Sanders? Now _that _was fun," he added. "If you thought he was beautiful before, you should have seen - - did you see?" He hurt her again, purposefully. He didn't look interested in her pain, he looked interested in getting an answer. He repeated his question. "Did you see him? When he was dead? Did you see him on the cross?"

"No," she said, "no."

"It was my best work."

He stood and crossed the room to sit down. From the distance, he looked like a Greek statue - - naked and tense with thought. Sara had heard a theory that rapists never liked to be fully unclothed, even when their position was secure. It had something to do with nakedness making them feel vulnerable. She watched Flowers stretch casually and wondered if either nothing made him vulnerable, or if he were simply beyond neat labels like _rapist _or _murderer_. Then she hated herself for listening to him and almost counting him as an artist - - a sadistic one, yes, but an artist all the same. She would label him if she wanted, fit him into a drawer if that was what made her happy. She was naked, too, but if he wasn't going to be vulnerable, neither was she. Her legs were trembling, and she counted to ten until they had relaxed completely. The mathematics in her head didn't vanish the pain, either, but it was numbed.

"Do you know, most people beg for their lives? He didn't. He said my name, and he tried to hit me, but he didn't beg. Does that make you proud of him? Or does it just make you jealous? Are you going to beg for me not to kill you, like I killed him? Or just not to touch you again?"

Sara didn't answer. She was away from him - - not far enough, but away. She mapped in her head the route they had taken from Claberson's hotel room when the gun had been in the small of her back and his arm had been looped around her shoulders like a string of beads. His caresses in the hotel had clung to her skin like bruised promises, fulfilled when she had found herself in this new room - - _his _room. It was . . . well-decorated. Neat. Artistic and functional at the same time. It was small, though, and on the outskirts of Vegas, as if he had tried to retreat and had only been able to go so far.

"What was the listed cause of death, by the way? For Sanders. I'm curious."

"Exsanguination," she said, relishing the scientific term and hoping to knock him off his footing, even for a moment. It didn't matter in the long run if he were confused by the word or not, but it was some small, insignificant victory, and the only one she had - -

He took it from her. "Bled to death. Interesting. I was wondering if it would be trauma - - I hit him fairly hard, you see, and - - "

"Stop," she said, and started to add please but then bit her lip against the word. She would not beg him. For anything. For anyone. Greg had been crucified without a whisper of a plea, and she would lie in this bed and take him again and again until it killed her, but she wasn't going to beg him. Anything but that. She would bargain before she would beg.

"I'll tell you something," Sara said, and remembered his dramatic nature. "A secret."

He smiled. He really did have a lovely smile.

"A secret. In exchange for me not rubbing in the messy details of killing Sanders?"

She swallowed hard against nausea. "Yes."

"Do I get to pick?"

He sounded like a child. She nodded, and he sank back in the chair in obvious thought. He took his time in consideration and she took hers in studying him again, hoping the distance would add the clarity that the proximity had lacked. He sprawled in the chair, unashamed of who he was, what he had done, and what he looked like, so he was confident. He had a body tone that looked as if it were from regular exercise rather than gym workouts or bodybuilding. It was nothing she hadn't noticed before.

"Tell me what you _were _doing on the last day of that seminar," Flowers said finally. "Tell me why you weren't out of the building on time."

"I slept with Grissom," she said.

He didn't even hesitate.

"You said you'd tell me a secret, not a lie."

She hated that her lie hadn't even given him pause, so she used the truth. Her last weapon. "It's not much of a secret," she said, "since you've already guessed. You were right - - he looked at me for the longest time. A thousand ideas. Not enough . . . courage." It was the only word she could settle on, in the end. What the hell, anyway, right? Grissom wasn't here. She was here and she was bleeding and she was going to tell the truth because Flowers didn't believe her lies, anyway. "So I asked if he would be my reference, when I applied for a job after graduation, and he said yes."

His eyes were closed. "You aren't finished yet," he murmured. "Not nearly."

_Not nearly is right._

"He wrote down his home number and gave it to me."

_I'm not often there_, he had said, giving her the slip of paper that had been warm when she enclosed it in her hand. _But I could always call you back._

"He said that if he wasn't there when I called, he'd call me back."

"It's a line," Flowers said, not opening his eyes.

"No," she said, "not from him, it wasn't."

He considered this and nodded. "All right," he said, agreeably, reasonably, "it wasn't. Keep going. It's a fascinating story. I'd say that I can't wait to see how it ends, but I think it's going to end here, and I'll be around for that. So tell me the end of the first act, at least."

_I hope you do_, she'd said, gathering all of her nervousness together and pushing it away. She had been young - - pretty enough - - and a few boyfriends through high school and college had given her confidence enough to do this. She had written down her own number in one swift movement of pen across paper. _But if I can't reach you, maybe you can reach me. Sometime. For something. Coffee, maybe. You like lattes, right?_

"I gave him my number. Asked him out for coffee."

Grissom had been blindsided, and she had been confused. Hadn't she read him right? He had been looking at her - - sideways glances as well as the usual flirtatious ones. He'd been more than civil, he'd been sweet. He'd been more than sweet, he'd been . . . available. For the first time, she had wondered if he were married, and shamed had warmed her face and choked up her vocal chords.

_Sara, I'm sorry, but - -_

_It's fine_, she'd said. _I was . . . presumptuous. It doesn't matter. Keep my number. _She had managed to smile at him, but that time, out of all the times she had smiled at him before, she kept her lips closed, ashamed of the gap between her teeth. And he had never made her feel ashamed before. _You're still impressed with my work, right? Maybe if you ever need a hand, you can give me a call._

Flowers seemed to be evaluating her silence. "What did he say?"

"You know what he said." She was too tired to pretend that he actually had to dig this information out of her. She couldn't keep her secrets around him. "He said no."

"And then you blushed. You made an excuse. You apologized for your . . . sexual harassment."

She didn't have to look at him to know that he was smiling.

"And he - - he kept your number."

"He only called me once," she said. "Three years later. He called and he offered me a job. He didn't say anything about three years being gone. He didn't mention me asking him out, and I didn't, either. It was mutual silence. But . . . I was hoping . . . he _did _call me. Nick says that he didn't call anyone else."

_I don't even have to turn around. Sara Sidle._

_It's me._

"Secret's done, Sara Sidle," Flowers said quietly, "and everything else about you, I already know. You've sold your bargaining chip so cheaply - - just so I wouldn't talk about your friend? You may be the best criminalist in Las Vegas . . . but you never would have made it in marketing. You gave everything away, and now I can take everything else."

He stood and crossed the room.

Any tenderness that had been there before was gone. And she screamed against him, her hands aching and her wrists and ankles bruising from the cuffs. She screamed and cried and Matthew Flowers buried his head in her neck and laughed before delicately kissing her shoulder. Again and again. It hurt . . . she couldn't seem to catch her breath . . . and there wasn't enough room on the bed or in the cuffs for her to get away from him.

"Stop," she said, and whispered, "please."

And through the haze of tears and pain, she looked over his shoulder and saw the two men come through the door. The light made them nothing more than silhouettes, and she couldn't even place them. She couldn't think clearly enough to call to them, not even to ask for rescue as she had asked them before. They were like dolls, balanced in the doorway. They didn't look a thing like heroes, anymore than Matthew Flowers had looked like a killer.

So she didn't speak, and Flowers didn't look up.

He didn't look up until someone, their voice high-pitched with fear and panic, shouted:

"_Jesus, Grissom, put the gun down!"_


	38. A Fine Line

We're coming down now - - last Nick chapter. Hang in with me for a few more rounds, and I promise we'll make it through, okay? Thanks for staying with me after the last chapter - - I know it crossed a lot of inherent taboo lines for a lot of people, including me, but I hope you'll stay, regardless. After all, we're almost done.

- - - - - - - - - -

Chapter Thirty-eight: A Fine Line (NICK)

- - - - - - - - - -

What he saw when he came through the door shoulder-to-shoulder with Grissom was skin. Flowers, first, all tanned, tense muscles, and then Sara. Nick looked away at this realization, his face burning, unable to look at her nakedness, especially like this.

He looked around the room instead, frozen and unspeaking, searching for any weapons that Flowers might be able to reach. They didn't have the authority to arrest Flowers, but Nick had called in a black-and-white to follow them. All they had to do was stop Flowers from going on the run before the officers could reach him, but they couldn't stop him while they were bleeding to death. He didn't see any visible guns, and his eyes traveled over Flowers's shoulder to touch upon Sara's face. His gaze connected with hers, and he swallowed back a cringe at the thousand-yard, unrecognizing stare he found there. He was only beginning to look back at Grissom to signal a move when he saw Grissom move without a hint of signal - - a hand on a gun, already out of the holster and drawing upwards before Nick could even stop him with an arm or a word, and then leveled at Flowers's back.

For a second, Nick hesitated.

_Why stop him? _a small voice whispered. _Why stop him? You don't care whether Flowers lives or dies. Look at what he's done - - look at what he's DOING to her, Nicky! No one would blame you for just letting him shoot . . . no one needs to know that you could've stopped him - - Grissom wouldn't say a word, Sara can't even understand what's happening, and Flowers . . . Flowers would be dead . . ._

_But winning. Because isn't that exactly what he wants? To ruin Grissom forever? To find a flaw, place a chisel, and knock him wide open?_

His hand flung out and he knew, sickeningly, that it was going to be too late - - yes, too late forever, way to go, Nicky, good job - - but maybe at least he could knock the shot awry. Maybe it would ricochet. He could say that Grissom shot off on purpose, or that there was some kind of skirmish . . . maybe it would be enough just to have the bullet go through a lampshade or an elegant chair.

He heard his own voice, too shrill: "_Jesus, Grissom, put the gun down!"_

The shot hit the floor to the side by a combination of Nick knocking it off-balance and, he hoped, Grissom choosing to turn it downwards, even if he hadn't been able to keep his finger from tightening with that final ounce of pressure.

Flowers rolled away and stood. The sheet from underneath Sara came with him, and he wrapped it around his waist in an exaggerated gesture of modesty, as if he were a blushing maiden embarrassed to be found in such a compromised position. The contrast to Sara - - exposed, delicate, damaged, and violated - - was thrown into even sharper relief. Flowers smiled at them, as if pleased by their visit, and sat down primly on the bed by one of Sara's feet. Nick looked at her unpainted toenails, because it was the only part of her he could stand to view. Ten perfect toes. He had been curious about her feet before, teased by open-toed shoes, and had even joked with her about it, teasingly, and it had become a kind of game, with Sara wearing cotton sneakers and slowly unlacing them until Nick pretended to be riveted by the strip-show like reveal and she faked a blush, apologized, and tied them again.

_Maybe next time, Nick - - buy my feet dinner and I'll tell you if they're ready to go all the way yet._

_I'll buy them flowers_, Nick always said. _Tie daisies around your toes._

He pointed his own gun at Flowers, who might as well have been a statue for his stillness. He was vaguely aware that his hands were trembling and damp with sweat, but he gripped even harder against the warming metal and tried to keep it steady.

"Don't move," he said to Flowers.

He was all too aware of his role in this final act. He was there only to stop Grissom from killing Matthew Flowers, no matter what. Once again, he was Grissom's safety. Flowers had wanted to ruin Grissom once and for all, and what could ruin him more than, here, at the end of the world, pulling that trigger? Grissom wasn't a killer. They all needed Grissom to be better than themselves, and if Grissom broke Flowers apart with lead, what would be left for the rest of them?

_So selfish, Nicky. But protect him anyway._

He was here to look at Flowers so Grissom would be free to look at Sara. To look after Sara.

Grissom said, harshly, "Where are the keys?"

Flowers shrugged. "Have you considered that I might not know? I could have thrown them out a window - - or swallowed them - - or simply hidden them away so well that you might never find them. And how are you going to free your lady, Dr. Grissom, if you can't even find a piece of metal? Take a welding torch to her wrist to melt them away?"

"If you hid them, I'll find them," Grissom said. His voice was shaking. "If you threw them away, I'll go get them. If you swallowed them, I'll rip you open to get them back, God help me."

"Oh, _God_," Flowers said easily, "yes, may He help us all."

He looked straight at Nick, who watched the gun leap between his fingers as they spasmed together. It was impossible, of course, but - -

But Flowers looked like him.

The resemblance wasn't strong enough to send up any soap opera ideas about him being actually tied by blood to the man in front of him who was still damp with Sara's blood, but it was enough to make him shiver and press his lips together until they ached against the ridges of his teeth. Not everything was there. Flowers was fair-haired where Nick was dark - - pale blonde hair and blue eyes making him look like Hitler's perfect Aryan or even the Bible's conception of an angel. But they had the same shape - - the same squared shoulders, the same mouths, the same shape of hand, the same nose - - a minute series of similarities that were invisible to almost anyone else and shockingly plain to him. And Flowers smiled the way that Nick did (or had) - - without a trace of malice. When Flowers smiled, you wanted to buy him a beer and introduce him to your sister.

He thought of drinking sticky-sweet orange tea with Amy in Boston. She would have loved Flowers. Would have called him Matty and let him kiss her goodnight on the porch. Would have wanted him to take her to go see fireworks on the Fourth of July.

But even the smile, as much as it disturbed him, was not what bothered him the most.

It was something he could not put his finger on, the way he supposed no one could ever pinpoint exactly what it was that made them cringe away from Edward Hyde. It was a kind of sensation that clung to Flowers like a layer of cellophane - - only winking back at him in certain types of light. It was the look of . . . _property_. As if Flowers weren't himself but merely an extension of some higher power. A willing extension, a _desperate _extension. A _slave_. He looked like someone with a master. There had to be someone above him, had to be - - Nick was too intimate with the concept of belonging beneath someone else to not recognize that glimmer.

_I'm Grissom's safety. He's someone's gun._

"Would you mind if I moved just a little, Nick?"

He hated the way his name, so casual, came out of that mouth. Hated the instant familiarity.

"If I'm going to produce those keys Dr. Grissom seems to want so badly, I'm going to have to go and get them, right? You understand that."

His tongue was thick in his mouth. "No, I don't think so. You tell me where they are and I'll get them."

"I don't think so," Flowers said, mimicking Nick's tone perfectly. It was like an auditory mirror. "See, you'd have to take your attention off me, and I'm just so close to what you're trying to save. I'm close to both of them. Close enough to reach her, and wouldn't that just kill _him_? So I think you should just let me get what you want . . ." He offered a lascivious look at Sara. "Unless I've already done that."

_I'm Grissom's safety and he's someone's gun. There's a fine line between people like me and people like Flowers, but there is one. I know there is. There has to be. It's fine but it's there, I just wish that I could see it a little clearer._

It was just such a very fine line. Such a sliver of distinction.

He used to think that the empathy Grissom scolded him for so often would be what would save him, in the end. He used to believe that trust would open up the doors that reserve could not - - that the very need for approval that Grissom had tried to stamp out of him would be what made him invaluable. Not in so many words, but he had hoped. He had hoped that persisting in caring what Grissom thought would be a form of defiance in itself - - that the empathy would earn Grissom's empathy. And now Grissom had him at his side like an original Nick Stokes was the best thing since sliced bread . . . and it ought to have been everything he'd ever wanted.

Instead, he found himself wondering if what made Grissom need him was already lost. If somehow, in the last few days - - and how _short _a time it had been, how the days had just slipped underneath his feet - - it either felt like years or seconds since things had been Okay, not days. Anything but the actual time - - that empathy had dissolved and run off him like rainwater.

The gun quivered in his hand. He kept pointing it at Flowers.

He said, "You can move," but didn't lower his hands. Had to be ready. He had to be ready because Grissom was never going to be ready for this again. That momentary rage-horror that had fuelled Grissom's finger on the trigger was gone, channeled into Sara, and Nick was all that was left.

Flowers gave him a gracious smile. "Thank you."

He stood and kept the sheet wrapped around his hips.

Grissom was whispering something in Sara's ear that sounded like comfort, as if Sara had scraped her knee and everything that was wrong could be cured by words alone. As if the kiss Grissom delivered so gently to her bruised cheek could heal her. Sometimes, he thought, Grissom was just so _stupid_. Never learned a thing about real life or real people - - too caught up in the dust of books and the sharp acid smell of chemicals. Never learned what anyone needed from him.

Nick could have comforted Sara. He would have known what to say in a genuine honesty. He wouldn't have been Grissom, sitting by her side and crooning with all damned good intentions that things would be okay, honey, that they would make it okay.

The taste in his mouth was metallic.

_Grissom doesn't know anything._

For all those years of Grissom condescending to him for every youthful thing he'd ever done - - anything that ever hinted that he wasn't just a scientist - - every slip, every folly, every kid's mistake - - it was Grissom who had never grown up, after all.

Flowers came out of the dresser drawer with a silver key. The lights made it glimmer.

"Give it to him," Nick said, jerking his head so hard towards Grissom that his neck made a snapping noise and ached immediately. "Give him the key and let him get those things off her."

Flowers stopped looking at him and turned his attention back to Grissom, but didn't extend the key. "Is this your _wunderkind_, Dr. Grissom?" He studied Nick, pale blue eyes mercilessly scrutinizing. "No. But you want to be, don't you? Except now you're starting to realize that he doesn't care what you want to be, as long as what you _are _is what _he _wants. And he wants you to be - - what? The good guy? The hero? The . . . saint?"

Nick's fingers seemed to freeze on the gun, as if frostbite glued them there.

"He wouldn't think you're such a _saint_ if he'd heard what you'd said, would he? On the rooftop? Do you know I reminded Sanders of that, just before I killed him? Do you know that I made him a saint, after all? I gave him what he wanted."

"Give him the keys," Nick said softly.

_Do you want me to hit you or something, so everyone knows how perfect you are?_

_Greg_, he thought miserably, _Greg, man, I'm sorry. I didn't - - I couldn't - - I'm so sorry that it came out like this. I'm sorry that this is the way it has to be._

And he was, was sorry. He was sorry that he had traded in his friendship with Greg for another shot at Grissom's approval, he was sorry that he'd let weariness trip him up enough to glide his tongue over his teeth and stick his vocal chords to make him say things he never would have said otherwise, and he was sorry that Greg had died before Nick could even get a chance to begin apologizing. He was sorry that Grissom couldn't see there was no one left more ill-suited to the job of keeping them all safe than Nick. He was sorry for Lizzie Zimmer, who had stumbled into all of this carrying too many years of hatred; sorry for Ecklie, who had been so sure that things were under his control; sorry for Claberson, who had had it all together and then seen it all fall apart; sorry for Hodges, who had, after all, only wanted to be a hero; even a little sorry for Flowers, with all his faulty wiring and the willing-slave look that made him just a pawn in someone else's game.

Flowers was still looking at him. "People pray to saints, Nick."

He kept his eyes open while he prayed to Greg, who wasn't going to save anyone ever again. It was fruitless, and helpless - - Greg hadn't even been able to rescue himself. But it kept him from going crazy, and it kept his hands steady on the gun.

Again, "Give him the keys."

"You're a very determined person."

Flowers sighed and held his hand out to Grissom, who plucked the key from it as if it were a rose instead of just a badly-shaped piece of metal. It fit perfectly into the lock - - Flowers hadn't been lying about that - - and turned. Sara's wrist came free, marked with a bracelet of reddened skin from the pressure and her struggles.

"There are officers on the way," Nick said. He didn't budge his gaze from Flowers, but his peripheral vision caught Grissom unlocking the rest of the cuffs and slowly wrapping his arms around Sara's shoulders. "You're done. No more tabloid rumors, no more legends, no more white roses, they're going to tie you down on a table and _kill_ you." His voice shook. "You bastard. You _bastard_. They'll kill you, and I'm gonna watch."

When someone opened the door behind him, Nick almost fired out of sheer reflex.

_What the hell - -_

"Sara." The voice - - warm, edged with grief. "Aw, Sara . . ."

_Warrick - - Warrick and Catherine. I told them, though. I told them to stay where they were because none of us needed to hurt Grissom anymore. Warrick's his golden boy, and Catherine's his oldest friend, what do they think they're doing here? I'm expendable. I'm not enough. I could die and it wouldn't hurt him, but they don't need to be here, it'll KILL him if they're gone._

He threw his arm out to block the door. "Don't you get any closer," he said from between his teeth. "Don't you _dare_."

"Easy, Nick," Catherine said, laying her hand on his arm. "We won't get closer."

"Where are the _cops_? Where is the fucking _black-and-white_ I called? Where is _Brass_? Why are you here instead of them? You wanna arrest him, Warrick? Cath? Want to read him his rights? What are you _doing _here? I told you to stay away from this."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about her safety, at least," Flowers said quietly. "She's off-limits."

"Fantastic. Someone's safe, and I'm just - -"

He stopped.

That willing-slave look.

Someone's gun.

Off-limits.

"Who are you working for?"

Flowers reclined, catlike, on the bed, just a few inches from Sara. "I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, Nick. Didn't Ecklie tell you that I don't work for anyone? I'm sure he thought that he was running the operation, but - -"

"He did," Nick said, realizing. "He thought he was in control, but he was just the decoy for us to see. And you were just the decoy for _him_ to see."

Sara said, "Claberson."

It was the first time she'd said anything since Nick had gotten there, and he was shocked by the sound of her voice. It was hoarse, quiet, and shell-shocked. But she was _trying_, he could tell. There was a kind of savagery there - - _she hasn't stopped_, Nick thought, unmistakably feeling blessed. _She's angry, and that's better than being defeated. She's not going to give up. She's not going to let him win._

"Shh," Grissom said, soothingly. "It's okay. We'll be out of here soon, I promise. You don't have to talk right now. We're going to get you to a hospital."

_Oh, Grissom, you're missing the point! Let her talk! Let her SCREAM._

"Claberson thought that there was someone else," Sara said. She straightened against Grissom. "It was in his notes. He thought that someone else was running the show."

"Claberson," Flowers said, "was more intelligent than I thought. He ran away - - cowardly, but sensible - - and he left you what you needed - - stupid, but courageous. Such a blend of contradictions. But he was right. Someone else was pulling all the strings. Someone wealthy . . . and cruel . . . and brilliant. I like him quite a lot, actually. If this were Hollywood, it would turn out that he's actually my father, and that poor man I killed all those years ago didn't have any biological link to me at all. But he's not my father, is he?" He looked at Catherine. "He's yours."

_Braun. Sam Braun._

Nick didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"I guess you didn't trap the big bad wolf after all," Flowers said, placing his head on the pillow. This far above him, covered in that white sheet, he still had the angelic look that let him catch people so off-guard. "I think by the time you get through arresting me, he'll be long gone. That's what I would have done - - and there's a fine line between someone like me and someone like him."

"You son of a bitch," Grissom said wonderingly.

Nick watched the gun rise in Grissom's hand.

_There's a fine line between people like me and people like Flowers._

_What are you going to do when all that empathy is gone? When you aren't what Grissom needs you to be? What are you going to do when you can't even stop the bad guys from winning?  
  
_

_Jesus, Grissom, put the gun down._

_She's not going to let him win. All that's happened, and she still hasn't given up. She's not going to let him win, because that's not what we do. She's not, and neither am I._

_What's going to be left for us if Grissom's a killer?_

_I'm expendable. I'm not enough. I can't hurt him._

Nick fired twice.

Flowers touched a hand to his chest, and his fingers came away wet, sticky, and crimson. He looked at them with a great expression of puzzlement on his face, as if he had never seen or expected to see anything so odd as his own blood coming out with such speed. He looked up at Nick, and then back at his fingers. A red drop of blood swelled and dropped to the sheet, where it blossomed and grew.

"Red," he said. "I never bought red roses."

He smiled, so obviously confused, and then his hand fell down on Sara's thigh, where it left a smeared scarlet handprint on her bare skin. Red roses. Flowers closed his eyes and Nick watched his chest rise and fall with shallow breaths until the movement stopped completely.

Warrick was holding Nick's shoulders as he slid back, grateful for the warmth.

"So you didn't have to," he said, feeling tired. There it was, leaving him like a whisper, the last trace of value, of Nick, of belonging. The last trace of willing slave. He met Grissom's eyes across the room. He couldn't read the expression, and, for the first time, didn't care. He had done what he was supposed to do. He smiled at Grissom, and when his tongue flicked over his lips, he could taste Flowers's blood from where it had splattered back on him.

Grissom's eyes were the icy color of faded denim, and there was a drop of blood clinging to his cheek.

"So _you_ didn't have to," Nick said. He hoped it was enough, and that Grissom would understand.

He let Warrick hold him upright as they waited for the police to come.


	39. The Losses

Thanks for all your great replies. I really can't believe that there are only three chapters left to tell in the story, and I want to thank you again for sticking with me the whole hard way - - you've made the job of writing a lot easier with all of your considerate feedback.

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Chapter Thirty-nine: The Losses (GRISSOM)

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When the shooting started, he thought that it was his gun and almost dropped it. His hand slid over Sara's shoulder, slick with sweat and squeaking down her skin, and when the second shot came and he saw his weapon laying on the sheets like a dark stain, his lips parted to drawn in breath, and he knew. He couldn't turn his head to look at Nick, but his periphery was of an extended arm, tense with concentration, and a gun rocking back and forth in Nick's grasp as he fired - - and fired.

_Nicky_. He tasted blood and sweat, all over his tongue and between his teeth. A chicken pox of blood scattered over the sheets. _Oh, Nicky._

No one spoke except for Flowers.

Grissom had heard his father speak just before he died. He had only been seven, and his mother had been away at work. The last words had come out yellowy and whispery, with a shuffling noise like old newspapers sliding together. He'd said, _Tell your mother I love her_, and then he'd died. Grissom - - who had been Gil, then - - had wandered around the house for an hour, feeling sleepy and nauseous, wondering why he hadn't been mentioned. His father had known the death was coming, had apparently predetermined his words, and he had been ill, growing old before his time.

Flowers was as young as Nick, and so unprepared for death that his last words were wet instead of dusty-dry, unplanned instead of rehearsed, and genuine instead of plotted.

"Red," he said, and Grissom didn't have to see him to know what he was looking at. Smeared all over his hands like finger-paint, and so grotesquely crimson. "I never bought red roses."

Grissom turned his head into the crook of Sara's neck so that he didn't have to see Flowers die.

"So you didn't have to," Nick said, sounding woozy. Grissom finally looked up and saw that he was pale, trembling, and weak-kneed. There was blood clinging to his face and shirt. Nick met his eyes and Grissom couldn't recognize anything there, as if Nick were fading away so rapidly that soon there would be nothing left of him at all. Flowers wasn't the only dead body in the room.

Nick's eyes were dark and slowly becoming expressionless.

"So _you_ didn't have to," Nick said, looking at him.

Grissom looked at Flowers on the bed. He had died lying down, and was still soaked with his own blood. He looked like nothing so much as Lucifer, finally and irrevocably fallen, but still absurdly beautiful. He looked back at Nick, who was wrapped up in Warrick's arms and shaking so badly that he looked as if he might knock his feet out from under him from shivers alone. He looked back and forth between fallen angels, and wanted nothing more than to tuck his head away in the curve of Sara's shoulder and make this all go away by kissing her neck or her cheek. But Sara was pulling away from him already, standing naked and still bleeding to search for clothes. Before he could speak, she had found a bathrobe all made of silk - - Flowers's - - and drawn it tightly around her and cinched the waist. Her face was unreadable. Catherine was silent. Warrick was speaking, but so lowly that Grissom couldn't hear him. His lips were almost cupped to Nick's ear, and Grissom suspected that he was trying to soothe him, or comfort him, or condemn him. He had no way of knowing.

Nick was sapped of strength, Catherine was in shock, Sara wasn't speaking, Warrick's attention was all on someone else, and Grissom knew that he might as well have forced the gun into Nick's hand and straightened his finger on the trigger.

_You killed someone for me._

_You killed Flowers so that Flowers couldn't win and ruin me, but Nicky, you've done it just as well._

Two cops came through the door with their guns drawn, and Grissom looked at them and couldn't stop the growing feeling of disdain that rippled through him. They were too bright and clean in their crisp blue uniforms, and Grissom wondered how they looked in that room. Nick, with the bright sheen of blood still wet and gluey on his clothes and held against Warrick as if he wouldn't be able, otherwise, to find the strength to stand; Catherine standing with her knees locked and her face too pale; Sara wrapped up in silk with bruises starting to form on her face and the shadows starting to crawl into her eyes; Warrick staring down at Nick's shoulder; and Grissom himself, feeling dirty (how long had it been since his last shower?), tired (how long had it been since he'd slept?), and, most of all, old.

How much time had passed since he had come home to check his messages and heard them lined up, full of concern? Nick had been worried about him, then. Right now, Nick didn't look like he'd be up to worrying about anyone ever again. And Sara had been vibrant with anger, full of passionate intensity as she had tried to connect Lizzie Zimmer to their past.

There had been a world then.

Grissom had read _The Lord of the Flies_, and marveled at the end, when all the boys had become savages at last, when they were naked and covered in mud and blood, and they had finally been rescued by the epitomized Englishmen in their pristine white clothes, and tried to explain that in the end, their civilization had come to naught.

He knew _he _wasn't going to be the one to explain to the cops surrounding them and staring in amazement and distaste at this gathering. He knew he couldn't find the words.

He could tell them, _We were okay until Greg died. Things were bad, but we could have held it together. After Greg died, we couldn't even try._

One of the cops wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. "What the _hell _happened here?" he asked, looking in wide-eyed wonder at them all, as if he'd never seen anything quite so strange or quite so dangerous as this tightly-locked circle of bloodied, battered scientists huddled around a dead body on formerly pristine sheets.

Grissom looked around. "We were okay until Greg died," he said absently, looking at Sara. She had sat down on the bed next to Flowers's corpse, and he was wondering if she liked seeing him dead. He decided that he wouldn't blame her. "We couldn't hold it together after that."

"Sir?"

"There's been an accident," Warrick said suddenly. His hand was now on Nick's shoulder, and as Grissom watched, it contracted in a sudden squeeze. His voice was level, gravelly. He didn't hesitate even once. "Flowers - - the guy on the bed - - tried to touch Sara again. Nick told him to stop, and he wouldn't. Nick didn't have a choice. He fired."

The second cop, a little older and a little wiser, frowned. "Are you sure that's how it happened?"

Sara touched the silk edge of her bathrobe. "That's how it happened," she said.

She still wasn't looking at Grissom. She had let him touch her to the point of nearly kissing her neck when Flowers had died, but now she was focused entirely on the two officers. He was so glad to hear that the strength was still in her voice that he couldn't be jealous at the way she had moved away from him. He ought to say something, for Nick's sake, to add to the alibi they were constructing, and he dimly recalled a time when he would not have done this, for Nick or for anyone - - he would never have told these lies to save someone else's soul. He would have said that the law would prevail, and that Nick would win his freedom through a trial, because if the circumstances were understood, no jury would convict him for killing such an infamous killer. There had - - or so he remembered - - been a time in which he would have chosen to believe these quietly told lies instead of quietly telling his own. He would have done all of this without the faintest whisper of an idea that he should do anything else, but that was before, and he had already lost too much. He had lost Greg, had probably lost Sara to any purpose of love, and he refused to lose Nick.

And he wouldn't place his trust in these so pristine officers, who looked so close to turning up their noses at his crime scene. He didn't have the courage or the foolishness or the goodness to believe anymore.

He spoke up, hearing the dry scholarly tone in his voice. "If you have a room full of eyewitnesses telling you the same story, you don't have a case," he said. "Flowers threatened her, attempted to rape her, and Nick responded. And no one in this room will see him punished for that."

The cops were nodding, beginning to accept this story.

But Nick said, "That's not how it happened. I just killed him."

"Nick - - "

"Sorry," Nick said, tilting his head to smile at Warrick. "But I did. And maybe it's better this way." He held out his gun to the youngest officer, who, looking bewildered, took it. "Just give me a minute," Nick said, all charm, and then, without waiting for a response, turned back to Warrick.

"Let me know how it ends, okay?"

"Sure," Warrick said. His voice was shaking. "Yeah, we'll let you know."

"Nicky, please," Grissom said, and swallowed.

He couldn't say now that he wished Nick had never even stepped into that room. To say that would be to make Nick's sacrifice meaningless, and that was something he refused to do. He stepped forward, instead, and held one of Nick's hands in his own. Nick's fingers were like ice, but still somehow warmer than his own, and he could feel himself start to thaw. All the feelings were coming back, as if he had been on hold for so long and was now suddenly swept away. He hoped that he wasn't going to cry. This late in the game, if he hadn't cried before, he couldn't stand to start now.

"Hey, it's okay," Nick said, squeezing Grissom's hand. "I knew what I was doing. Just one thing - - can I ask you a favor?"

Catherine laughed.

It was an unusually harsh sound, but Grissom knew exactly what she was thinking and didn't have to look at her to verify. She was thinking that, after what he had just done - - for Grissom, for them - - Nick could ask whatever favors he wanted.

"Go ahead," Grissom said. His vision was blurry. "Tell me."

"I have some money put away. I don't know how much it would take - - hell, right now, I can't even tell you how much I have saved - - but I want to be out for the funeral, okay? Greg said . . ." Nick's eyes were closed, and Grissom wondered if he were fighting back tears himself. "Greg said that I was going to be the one he'd blackmail into giving his eulogy. He was joking, I think . . . but it was after the explosion . . . so I didn't laugh. I want to do it. I promised him."

_We were okay until Greg died, _Grissom thought again, and let go of Nick's hand.

"And I'm promising you," he said evenly. "You'll be there."

Nick nodded, and slid his hands behind his back to be wrapped in steel. The officer led him outside, but the older one stayed a moment longer to look them over without an evaluating, steely gaze.

"Now, Thompson and I aren't going to write down what was said in this room," the man said. He ran a thumb over his salt-and-pepper mustache and bit down, hard, on a yellowing thumbnail. "I've been hearing a lot of things about what's happened lately, and I think you people have been through enough shit, that boy out there included." He continued to gnaw at his thumb, eyes fixed particularly on Grissom. "You take care of yourselves. You're getting old before your time."

"He's not going to be convicted," Catherine said. It was the first thing she'd said since they'd identified Sam Braun as Flowers's employer. "No jury in the world would send him away for putting two shots in a serial killer, and especially not under these circumstances."

"Maybe so," the cop said. "_Probably_ so. Good luck to him."

No one had to mention the obvious, that Nick's career was finished even if his life wasn't. Grissom's throat ached from suppressed laughter - - was this _his _fault, now, having ruined all that work Catherine did saving Nick during the Kristy Hopkins case? Nick had blown away all the skin cell matches with two carefully aimed and fired shots.

"You might want to clear out now," the cop said gently. "I'm going to take Thompson and the boy back to the station, and you can follow, if you want."

Warrick and Sara both nodded, although Grissom didn't know how she expected to go after Nick dressed in one of Flowers's fashionable silk robes and nothing else.

He touched her shoulder, and she didn't flinch away from him, just reclined against his arm until he was almost embracing her. This was the girl that he had kissed but never slept with, touched but never told her that he loved her. He had asked if she loved him, and she had said, _You know I do_. Feeling her warmth on his skin, he wasn't sure if he knew anything anymore. He loved her, but his heart was so efficiently broken that he wasn't sure if it were safe to touch her. She might shatter like china underneath his fingertips. She was still Sara Sidle, but he had loved her because she had been everything he could not bring himself to be - - alive, unbroken, whole, focused, _strong_ - - and she might still be all of these things or none of these things. Only time could tell. He couldn't. He never had been able to read between the lines when it came to the people he loved.

Catherine was nodding, too, and Grissom wondered if there was a drumbeat in the room tapping along to a rhythm that his ears, even after the surgery, couldn't pick up.

"No, Catherine," he said, as softly as he could, "you can't go with them. We have to go and find your father."

He knew the very second the words were out of his mouth that he had made a mistake. He should have used any other name - - called him Sam Braun or even Flowers's boss. But calling him Catherine's father sounded like an implication, as if he were blaming her, as if it had been her fault.

Her lips tightened. "Sure, Gil," she said. "My father. All right."

_One more person I think I just lost._

But he didn't have time to try and patch things up. After they arrested Sam Braun, maybe. After that bastard was behind bars and sealed for the rest of eternity for the crime of daring to break into pieces the only thing in his life he had ever respected as being complete, he would have time to apologize to Catherine. He would have time to bail Nick out of prison and plan for a trial. They would sit in Gil's townhouse and eat takeout Chinese while they discussed lawyers, tactics, and possible jobs for Nick after it was over and he was cleared. He would have time to see that haunted look in Warrick's eyes melt away. He would have time to love Sara again, to put his hand in hers and take her out for dinner. He would have time to put flowers on Greg's grave - - but not white roses. Never again white roses.

He looked to the officer. "You're going to have to come with us," he said. "You're going to need to arrest someone who might not go so willingly." He nodded at Warrick, and directed Sara to him with a nudge. "These two will ride with Officer Thompson and Nick back to the station."

"She might want to find some clothes - - "

"She can wear whatever she wants," Grissom said. He rubbed a hand over his face and grazed a knuckle across his temple. "I don't care how you have to excuse that in your report. Chalk it up to emotional distress or whatever you want, just let her go. Nick's a friend." He looked to Warrick. "When they're done checking him in, will you take her to a hospital?"

"Yeah," Warrick said. "You going to be okay?"

"No."

"Guess not. Me neither."

He shook hands with Warrick, and felt his own squeezed so tightly that all the bones threatened to snap in protest. Released, it immediately began to redden. He turned to Sara and, before he could think about whether or not he should offer a hand or hug her, she kissed him on the cheek and leaned against him, leaving him no other options. He wrapped his arms around her.

He barely heard what she whispered in his ear, but barely was enough.

"_I still love you_."

And then he was alone in the room with Catherine, and the officer, who introduced himself as Roger Dawson, had gone out to tell his partner to go ahead and take Sara, Warrick, and Nick to the station. Catherine put a hand next to Flowers's body.

"Do you think he deserved what he got?"

"Flowers? That and more."

"I don't know," she said. "People have faulty wiring sometimes. People make mistakes. I keep thinking about what he said before he died - - that thing about red roses. Red roses are for passion. Eddie used to buy them for me and tuck them between the comforter and the sheets so that when I came home and rolled down the covers, I had a whole garden growing over my bed." She laughed. "My marriage didn't have a lot of love, but it had enough passion. And passion burns out quickly enough, but at least it's something to fill you up inside. He didn't even have that. Just white roses."

"White roses are death."

"I think if you've been alive in Las Vegas over the last two weeks, you'll have learned that white roses mean death. We've been all over the news."

"I haven't been watching."

"They showed the cross in the parking lot. And some ambitious gopher managed to sweet-talk his way into the morgue when Robbins was off-duty and get some pictures of Greg and Lizzie Zimmer. The department's suing the networks for airing them."

"Catherine," he said, "I'm sorry about what I said about Sam."

"Apology accepted," she said tonelessly. The smile she gave him was just as lifeless. "Don't worry, Gil. I won't let you kill him - - and I'm not even carrying my gun."


	40. The Normal Goes On

Last chapter of part three - - all that remains now is the two-chapter epilogue, which I'll post together. It should be up tomorrow, with any luck.

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Chapter Forty: The Normal Goes On (CATHERINE)

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She spent a lot of time wishing on the way to the Tangiers. If there had been a well in Grissom's Tahoe, Catherine would have dropped every spare penny into the shining depths.

Every wish tunneled her a little farther back into her past. It was eerily like unearthing her own bones. She peeled away layers of years, dust, and regrets, and exposed the bareness within. Every wish was like a prayer, offered up for divine approval, and whispered into the pink skin of her palm, her mouth so tight against her hand that she could feel the movements of her lips in small kisses and even the bite of her teeth as they came together to spit out another wish. She unraveled time.

She wished that she had accepted Grissom's apology when he had given it to her. For Grissom to think to apologize at all was rare, for him to do it was even rarer, something that Nostradamus might have predicted as a global event. She wished that she would have said something else, instead of rubbing salt into his wounds.

She wished that she had seen what Nick was going to do and stopped him. She had convinced herself that she knew Nick better than anyone else. She had been the only person he had told about his babysitter, the only person to offer comfort after Nigel Crane, and the only person he had called in the middle of the night just before Greg had died. She had deluded herself into thinking that love was a substitute for understanding, and she hadn't been able to stop him. She hadn't even been able to see it coming, such a waste.

She wished that she could have stopped anything from happening to Sara. She even wished that they could have been on better terms before. They had never been friends. An occasional drink after work, maybe, an occasional consolation, but never anything closer.

She wished that Hodges hadn't hanged himself. She hadn't liked Hodges, either, but he had been real. He had been flesh and blood and someone that she saw more often than she saw her daughter, and all he had wanted was to be a hero. Maybe he hadn't deserved to be mocked when he was still cooling on a board - - mocked for his suicide novel and his delusions of grandeur. After all, she'd had those delusions herself, hadn't she?

She wished that Greg wasn't dead. She wished that she hadn't hit him.

She wished Lizzie Zimmer hadn't died alone and scared and hated.

She even made a wish for Flowers, who might have been human once, a long time ago. Certainly, he had never had anything but death to fill up his empty spaces.

She wished that when she was twenty and stripping, she had given Eddie a second glance and seen that all the slick in the world he carried around with him was nothing more than a sheen of grease. She wished that, after Lindsey was born, she'd pulled up stakes in Vegas and gone to Montana. She wished that she'd sat in the car with her daughter and watched the lightning ripple over the surface of the sky. She could have taught Lindsey to ride a horse. She could have stayed in the country and Eddie never would have found them because Eddie had never asked questions about who Catherine was or where she had come from.

She wished that at seventeen, she hadn't lost her best friend Cassidy over something so trivial as a guy whose name she couldn't remember. Catherine and Cassidy. They had looked like twins, with the same eyes and the same hair cut the same way, and almost the same name. And, unfortunately, the same taste in boys - - the bad taste.

She wished that when her cousins had helped her hunt Easter eggs, she hadn't gotten into a fight with Billy, two years older than her, over the biggest chocolate egg. She had split Billy's lip with one of her mother's rings. What a spanking she had gotten that night.

She wished that her mother had never met Sam Braun.

She wished that she believed in wishes.

Even after she had just negated her own birth by removing her father, she didn't feel better. None of it was fixable. Her life had been broken into pieces like a tea set dropped by a child as careless as she had been, and no one could put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

_I'm mixing metaphors_, she thought wryly. _China tea sets and fictional talking eggs. The point is that all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put my life back together again._

Only the smallest mistakes were ever fixable. She touched Grissom's hand. "I'm sorry," she said. "Maybe it's all going to work out. We know who he is, and what he's done, and we're going to put him behind bars. The science didn't save us, but something did."

He said nothing.

_Last time pays for all_, she thought, and went on.

"Gil, I can't tell you why he did this anymore than I could tell you why he's done any of the other things he's done. I can't even tell you that I'm not to blame for half of it. I didn't let him in, and maybe he thought that this would change things. And maybe it even would have, if Flowers hadn't slipped up. Maybe when it was over, I would have come to him and said that I'd finally realized that love was important, no matter how screwed-up, and maybe I would have let him in. Maybe I even would have trusted him alone with his granddaughter. I can't tell you anything except that you're not to blame."

"It's a good speech, Catherine," he said, without looking at her. "Maybe we won't have to bail out Nick to say a eulogy. Tell you what, you can say mine if I don't make it through this."

Roger Dawson looked up briefly from the wheel. "Two of you ought to stop this before we get there. United front, and all that." He sounded terribly disinterested in everything that was going on in the backseat of the Tahoe. "Don't want to leave any chinks in your armor."

_Were we _ever _wearing armor?_ She thought of Nick's warmhearted friendliness, Sara's strength, Warrick's cool, and Greg's unflappable buoyancy. Sure. Armor. But the chinks had been broken wide open now - - they hadn't even been left with a breastplate.

"Truce?"

It surprised her that it came from Grissom, but she nodded anyway and held out her hand to be encircled in his. "Truce," she said.

_We can't be friends anymore_. She'd been stalling the realization too long. _We can be coworkers, yeah, but we're not going to be friends again. I wouldn't be surprised if he never had another friend again. It costs too much for him to make them that it leaves him broke when they're gone._

And who wanted to look up one day and realize that the people you loved were lost along the way? Maybe Grissom had the safer idea. Maybe it would just be easier to box herself up into a series of compartments - - separate her head from her heart and her soul from her memories. Maybe she could forget the way Greg had touched a hand to his cheek after she had slapped him, let the memory of Nick's arms straight and quivering as he held that gun fade out of her mind, and block out entirely the way Sara had looked, naked and hurt on the bed.

The Tangiers wasn't busy. It was the wrong hour of the day, for one thing. All the lights seemed to bright, as if they were liable to scorch her corneas. She wanted sunglasses and didn't have any - - and there had been a time when Grissom would have sensed her frustration with the glare or at least noticed the sheer number of times she blinked, but that was over with. He looked like Sherlock Holmes - - a bloodhound trained and pointed in Sam Braun's direction.

_God protect us,_ Catherine thought, _from the sins of the fathers._

It was seeing him that made her angry, and abruptly, her fingernails were biting into the skin of her palms as she made tight fists. There were too many memories associated with Sam, anyway - - he had been the one to teach her some of her hand-to-hand combat when she had turned fifteen - - she still remembered breath on her neck that smelled like alcohol mixed with something sweet as he guided her hands into place: _Okay, Mugs, hands like this, and you kick his ass like this, if he's trying to take something you don't want_. She had been old enough to understand that he was teaching her to guard against someone trying to steal more than her purse, and she had thanked him with a kiss on the cheek before he went back in to talk to her mother. And at night, when she had heard the bedsprings start to creak, she had closed her eyes in the next room and recited stance directions in her head.

_Keep your punches clean, Mugs_, she had whispered to the insides of her eyelids.

It had been Sam Braun to take her out for drinks when she turned twenty-one, even though she hadn't wanted him around then. She'd wanted to go with some girls from the club, but Sam had just said that if she went around with some irresponsible people, she'd end up using her car to gift-wrap a tree before the end of the night.

_It's your birthday, _he'd said, _and you're entitled to get as drunk as you want, sweetheart, but don't think that I'm going to let someone else take you home._

He hadn't been a bad father for someone who hadn't been sure, all things considered. A little unorthodox, but she had loved him. She had loved him even after she knew that he was a killer, because it was hard to stop loving someone you'd loved your whole life. She had cried into her pillow - - but only once - - and finally decided that she wasn't going to let loving Sam make her vulnerable or make her hard. It just was the way it was, and she'd deal with it. Love didn't mean special favors. Love didn't mean he was one of the good guys. She'd handle whatever curveballs he threw with a stiff upper lip, like he'd taught her.

What repulsed her when he came into view was that she still loved him, and that he hadn't changed.

Grissom had aged a thousand years. Gray hairs had been tangling in her own hairbrush of late, too. But Sam looked the same - - well-dressed, impeccably groomed, straightened, and polished. His expression at the sight of the two of them and a cop standing nestled into his casino was one of polite resignation.

Grissom said, "Flowers is dead."

"I liked Flowers," Sam said, lighting a cigarette. "I really did. An absolute sociopath, of course, but one of those genuinely polite young men you run into every once in a while. And he was very, very good at what he did. Obviously."

Dawson said, "We're going to have to bring you in."

"Suit yourself." Sam held out his hands. "I know when I've been beat. Call it a virtue, if you like - - it's not one I think you share, Grissom."

Catherine couldn't keep Grissom from hitting Sam except by sliding between the two of them and preventing him from even raising his hand to start with. "Why? God, why? I never thought you were even _capable _of something like this. I chalked you off as a crime-of-passion type of man, Sam, never thought you had it in you to commit cold-blooded murder."

She was trying to do to him what she'd done to Warrick, once - - rub in the words and hope they stung. Hope they made that look of composure turn sour. But Sam, for better or for worse, was tougher than Warrick, and she couldn't even dent him. She wondered why their own armor had been so easy to tear apart when his seemed impregnable.

"I taught you never to trust people," Sam said quietly, "and God knows I never taught you to trust me. You never think you know anyone, Mugs. Never think you understand. Do you honestly think that I could have had all this without a few skeletons in my closet?" He swept an arm out to indicate the casino, with all its plush carpeting and jingling slots, but Catherine had a feeling that he was talking about more than the Tangiers. Sam's smile said he was talking about Vegas itself - - and wasn't that true? Old Vegas - - hadn't Sam been there almost from the beginning, turning the stones to look for gold?

"You build things up the best you can, and then you keep someone else from knocking them down. You used to understand that. Your mother and I took you to the beach and you kicked anyone in the shins if they came near your sandcastle. I was protecting my investments when I hired Flowers - - but I'll admit to a little bit of passion." He turned to Grissom. "You tried to screw with me just one too many times, Grissom," he said flatly. "Revenge is best served cold - - and with a great deal of planning."

Grissom said nothing. He was looking at a chandelier in the distance, and Catherine could see crystals reflected in his eyes.

"You wanted to ruin everything I created," Sam said, and smiled. "But this is a laissez-faire world. You couldn't hit me hard enough - - yet - - so I hit first."

"Did you even think about me?"

Catherine hated the way he voice sounded, like she was a little girl again. And maybe she was. Maybe she was just Lindsey's age, and Sam was letting her play with him at work. Maybe she was going to get to climb on top of one of the slick vinyl chairs near the slots and spin until she got dizzy and fell down on the carpet, pressing her nose against the pattern and smelling sweat, cleaner, and spilled cologne. But she was his daughter, and she loved him, and she deserved to know.

"When you were planning your laissez-faire pre-empt action, did you think about me at all? Did you think about how you'd put me through hell?"

"No one was going to hurt you." He looked petulant suddenly, like a very old, childish man who had been slighted and didn't appreciate it. "I told Flowers that he wasn't supposed to touch you, and he didn't. For all his flaws, he knew how to follow an order, and he _loved _following them, from the right person. No one hurt you, Mugs."

"You didn't think that this would hurt me?"

"You were another reason." His eyes were almost soft enough to be human. "If he was gone, you would have come to me, wouldn't you? You would have loved me again. I don't have any children left, Mugs - - I had Cain and Abel, and once Walt finishes his stretch on death row, I'll never see him again at all. But I had you . . . until he took you away. If he was gone, you would have loved me. You wouldn't have had a choice. That's just what you're like."

"I loved you anyway," Catherine said fiercely. "You just didn't see it - - and that's just what _you're _like."

Dawson, like Grissom, hadn't spoken, but now he said, "If everybody's done, I'd like to take him in. I've got a family to get home to, you know, and all this soap opera crap is going to be bad for my digestion tonight. You mind just putting your hands out and letting me get some cuffs on? It's been a real long day, see, and I'm tired."

Sam didn't even grant him a glance. "You loved me?"

"I _love _you," she said, making fists again, feeling battered and bruised. "But you were the one who taught me that love didn't matter - - and it certainly doesn't stop you from hurting anyone."

Dawson coughed.

She turned on him, feeling tears glittering in her eyes, "We've kind of got a situation here, if you know what I mean, and I'm sorry that you aren't going to get home to your family on time tonight, but the rest of us don't even _have _a family to go back to anymore, so - - "

"What you have here," Dawson said kindly, "is a man who needs some steel bracelets. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm sorry for your losses, Ms. Willows, but I'm going to have to cuff him now."

Catherine, startled more by his nonchalance than by his earlier vitriol, stepped aside and almost collided with Grissom, who still hadn't moved. Watching Dawson quickly and efficiently cuff Sam and just as efficiently reel off his rights jarred her in some way she couldn't really identify. It wasn't seeing Sam led away that drilled down deep into her mind, it was - - the way the normal rolled on inexorably, despite everything that had been thrown in its path. Here was a man named Roger Dawson who had glided in briefly to make an arrest - - just another day on the job - - and just wanted to get home to his family, eat leftovers, and fall asleep next to his wife after checking his kid's homework. He'd heard of what was happening to them - - like she had told Grissom, everyone with a TV set knew by now - - but it didn't touch him. Not really. He was just a guy doing his job the best he could - - treating Sam like a killer and treating them like victims.

_And he is a killer, and we are victims. And I guess the normal does go on._

"I think it's going to be okay," she said to Grissom, leaning against him and finally trusting him to not move away. "We got the bad guys, right? We won."

She looked at him, and hoped that he could see everything she was thinking - - from Roger Dawson tucking his kid into bed to a quiet funeral for Greg; from Sam getting locked up to Nick being acquitted; from Sara kissing Grissom when they left Flowers's apartment to Warrick putting away the weight he'd had to shoulder - - the weight of being Grissom, of being a leader. She hoped that he could see everything there, from the ending of life to life going on. And she hoped that he trusted her enough to know that it was true - - that they would be okay, that there would be plenty of time for the open wounds to heal into less painful scars - - that what she had said was true - - and that they were still worthy of being saved, by _something_, if not science.

She wished that he would believe her, and for just a second, she believed in wishes enough to be absolutely certain that this one was going to come true. She knew that Grissom was going to look at her and say, _You know what, Catherine? I think we did, _and it was making her warm, as if the wish itself and the surety that it would be granted was enough to make her glow.

But when Grissom spoke, he sounded disinterested, not peaceful, and all he said was:

"Do you really think so?"

And whatever was left of the wishing well inside her exploded in a burst of copper and silver spare change.

All around her, people played their slots. They won; they lost. Most of them didn't even realize that the man who owned the casino was being quietly led away by a beleaguered cop. They were just focused on themselves - - their own wins, their own losses, and their own lives. They never even saw what was happening in the center of the room. The people around them, with all their mix of insecurities, hopes, wants, and battles, were normal. The normal went on.

_But we won't._


	41. Closing the Circle

Part Four: All Fall Down

_We all began with good intent, love was raw and young_

_We believed that we could change ourselves, our pasts could be undone_

_But we carry on our backs the burdens time always reveal_

_It's the lonely light of morning and the wound that would not heal_

_It's the bitter taste of losing everything that I held so dear_

- - Sara McLachlan, "Fallen"

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Chapter Forty-one: Closing the Circle (GRISSOM)

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The morning Gil Grissom went to Greg's funeral, he watched the little girl who lived across his street jumping rope.

She wasn't chanting a rhyme, and that was the first thing he noticed. Her silence seemed to make her part of the funeral procession that would soon begin for everyone else and had already started for him. She gazed solemnly at him, never missing a skip as the rope swished underneath her feet and around the tops of her scuffed sneakers. He was glad to slide into the car and away from the strange, evaluating look in her eyes - - young as she was, had she seen the news bulletins that had lit up across Las Vegas? Had she known who he was and what he was responsible for? Had she known that he was why Nick killed, why Sara suffered, why Greg died? He wasn't significantly versed in human nature to read blame in her eyes when he thought there might only be complacency.

He was getting used to the looks by now. The slightly dazed looks from the people who would make him a celebrity; the slightly frightened looks from the people who were not quite sure that Flowers was dead and so stayed far away from him, not wanting to be harmed; and the slightly interested looks of the people who were biting their tongues to chop off questions that they desperately wanted to ask.

At the funeral, everyone looked resigned. Some of them - - mostly people that he didn't know - - looked sincerely grief-stricken. But where it counted, Grissom checked faces and only saw a kind of bewildered acceptance, because everyone that had really loved Greg knew by now that he was dead along with everything else worth loving. He stayed on the fringes for as long as possible, circulating among friends and acquaintances who, after the initial spike of recognition shone in their eyes, offered him only accusatory gazes mixed occasionally with compassion. No one tried to comfort him, because no one was sure whether or not he deserved to be comforted. He didn't know himself. He had been Greg's boss, after all, and these people probably had more of a right to be grieving than he did. But he couldn't explain to them why Greg had been important - - he didn't know how to put into words the feeling that Greg had been their mascot: a kind of golden child that they alternately chided and nurtured, but always loved for his brilliance, his joy, and his need.

After another moment's hesitation, he plunged into the trenches and prepared to face all of his dead, whether they were still alive or not.

It was Catherine he saw first. She was holding Lindsey's hand and looking very composed in her black dress and string of pearls, but she was staring directly at the coffin as if she couldn't make herself see anything else. Her hand rubbed absently at her cheek before she dropped it down to her side to clench tightly around her silk-covered purse. She uncurled her fingers from it with some obvious difficulty - - he could see her chest rising and falling in her effort to calm herself - - and made a fist, each finger drifting down towards her palm and locking there. He took a step towards Catherine, but he didn't know what he was going to say to her, and he didn't have a clue of what to say to Lindsey, who looked as pale and composed as a second version of her mother, so he edged back over the grass.

He didn't just see Warrick, Warrick came for him. He envied Warrick, who could walk like he had a purpose and a specific point. Warrick grabbed his hand when he saw him, and at first, Grissom was so confused by the gesture that he thought Warrick was going to tug him in some other direction - - perhaps to see Nick, who had made bail the day before and had, apparently, been practicing his eulogy ever since - - or to see Sara, the only one of them to officially be labeled as a victim, which Grissom thought was a shame. But Warrick was actually clinging to his hand and then shaking it. Grissom identified with the sentiment and shook back.

"People keep talking about us," Warrick said, nodding towards the crowd on the outskirts. "Saying that Greg's job got him killed, and we shouldn't even be here. They're good friends. I knew he had them, but I never knew where he kept them, or how he found the time, but he must have. I've been wondering if this many people would show up if I bit the dust tomorrow."

At least he'd said "if". Grissom wouldn't have wanted to be the one to try and talk Warrick out of suicide if he had said "when I bite the dust tomorrow". At this point, he felt like the least qualified person in the world to try and talk someone out of killing themselves - - Kevorkian would probably do a better job.

"I'd have a small funeral," Grissom said absently.

"Have you seen Nick yet?"

"No. I haven't been looking."

"He's not waiting for you, if you thought he was. I think he's about done being part of the team - - he just needs to wrap this up first. If Greg wasn't dead, I doubt he would have even tried to scrape up the bail money - - but if Greg wasn't dead, I guess a lot of things would have turned out differently, right?"

Grissom didn't know, couldn't say. Didn't want to think about it. What stuck with him most and bit hard through his defenses like a thorn was, _He's not waiting for you, if you thought he was_. It probably hurt the most because he hadn't seen Nick since he had been arrested - - he had meant to visit, but, given the circumstances, Nick had made bail quickly and then the funeral had been looming before them. He should have visited. He realized that now. He should have tried to see Nick, and made a scene if he couldn't. He should have thrown enough furniture around the room to wake up the whole damn prison to make sure that Nick knew that he had tried, but Grissom had never been the type to throw furniture or make assurances, and he guessed that Nick was no longer the type who waited for someone to start.

"What do you mean, he's about done being part of the team?"

Warrick raised his hands. "No one's standing together but us. And I didn't have to walk over here."

Grissom thought he understood. When his mind had drifted to a funeral before - - and it had always been with a guilty feeling of horror - - he had imagined all of them as the core of grief, tightly knit, never crumbling. Here, they were splintered - - together for Greg's sake but not really together at all. Sam Braun and Matthew Flowers had taken care of that with a few efficient, deadly blows.

"Nick's almost finished," Warrick continued, "and I'm getting close to the end, too. I think I'll stick around for the trial, but that's it. Either way - - win or lose - - I have to get out of here. Maybe get some place where things won't fall apart."

"I never thought you'd be the one to run away," Grissom said, before he could stop himself. One more sentence he could never take back, and if it were Warrick in the coffin in front of him, still gleaming in the light, would he regret it? Would he want to breathe it back in between his lips and swallow that bitterness before it could escape?

Warrick looked over his shoulder. "Never thought I would be, either. I used to think I'd grow old here - -and who wants to grow old in Vegas, right? Must be crazy. But I thought that I'd work it out anyway. Have job security. Get married. Have some kids."

Warrick looked at Catherine and Lindsey for a long time and Grissom was pretty sure he understood that, too. He had had a suspicion once that Warrick and Catherine would finally end up together at the end of the tracks, but if Warrick was taking off, than that attraction was just another casualty of war. He tried to not to look for Sara, because he didn't want to think about his own casualties. He had too many of them, anyway - - too many to count, let alone name.

"Where are you going to go?"

Warrick shrugged. "I was thinking New York, actually. I've never seen a real winter."

"I wish you'd stay," Grissom said. His lips were numb. "We could always get you a vacation in Alaska, see all the snow you want. If you stayed - -"

"If I stayed," Warrick said gently, "it wouldn't change anything. You really think we're just going to snap back into position because you solved the case? Nick killed someone, Greg's dead, Sara's - - been assaulted, and if the three of us didn't actually get hit, we had to watch, and that's bad enough."

"And your solution is leaving? Should I take off, too?"

"Yeah," Warrick said, and he didn't sound like he was joking. "If I were you, I'd go somewhere warm."

"Warmer than the desert?"

"South," Warrick clarified. "I'd like to see you on the Gulf of Mexico. Get your feet wet for a change. You could go to Mardi Gras every year if you lived close enough. I think that would be nice, don't you? All those carnival gold doubloons and beautiful women with strings of beads?" He shook his head. "But you wouldn't go. You'd think about it, maybe toss the idea around a couple times - - hell, maybe you'd even go as far as order a ticket. But you'd cancel your flight . . . or miss it and tell yourself that missing it was an accident, even when it wasn't."

"Why do you think I wouldn't go?"

"You don't change well. And this much change is enough for anyone, without throwing in a move. Besides, you'll stay because Sara's here. If Sara leaves - - I don't know. Then you might actually catch that flight. Call me if you do. I'll throw you a party." His smile softened the blow a little, but not enough. And all the smiles in the world couldn't change the fact that Warrick was right, and both of them knew it.

"If I move, I'll call you."

Warrick reached forward again and squeezed his hand.

"I'll leave my answering machine on."

They pulled apart as Nick approached the coffin, his hands tucked in the pockets of his black suit-jacket, and cleared his throat. Everyone gave him a wide berth - - Grissom wasn't sure if it were out of respect or out of fear: everyone knew that Nick was obviously the principal mourner, if he were giving the eulogy, but just as many people knew that he was the man who had punched two bullet-holes in Matthew Flowers's chest and then blithely confessed. Still, whatever the reason, people parted away from him and cleared a decent space so that the full force of Nick's grief had room to circulate.

Nick said:

_"Nature's first green is gold,_

_Her hardest hue to hold._

_Her early leaf's a flower;_

_But only so an hour._

_Then leaf subsides to leaf._

_So Eden sank to grief,_

_So dawn goes down to day._

_Nothing gold can stay._"

Grissom whispered to Warrick, "Robert Frost."

"That sums up a lot about how I feel about Greg, right now. It sums up a lot about how I feel about my life, right now. Greg would probably have thrown a fit if he knew that I was going to be reciting poetry at his funeral, probably would've said, 'Come on, Nick, a poem? Why not something by Manson?'"

For a split second, Nick's voice _became _Greg's - - and Grissom actually flinched, as if Greg were standing there, blended in with Nick's, but then the resemblance faded as Nick chuckled, and continued.

"I remember Greg and Grissom fought for two hours once over whether popular music counted as art."

Nick looked up, connected his eyes with Grissom's.

"Greg won, I think.

"Warrick and I used to have bets on the new lab techs - - how long they'd last, whether they'd leave in nervous breakdowns because of all the work or quit after a killing spree . . . stuff like that. We had three new DNA techs before Greg came along, and there Warrick and I were, pocketing the money and making all the jokes. Then we hear this rumor that this kid's coming in, top of his class at Stanford, and we all expect a child prodigy or something - - dead serious, no sense of humor, and definitely likely to crack under the first day stress. And Greg shows up in a concert t-shirt with his hair sticking up absolutely everywhere, and we stare at him for a while, and Warrick says - - but he sounds impressed - - 'I give him a day, man. _Look _at him.'

"I was a little more optimistic. I said, 'Nah, it'll be a week, at least.' Greg stayed for five years, so I guess I won that one." Nick looked at Warrick. "Pay up."

The crowd broke out in some extremely nervous laughter, and Nick gave everyone a very genuine, very unrehearsed smile. Grissom thought that some of them must be forgiving Nick already, because they pushed closer to him, maybe wanting to share in the grief they had been scorning, or maybe just wanting to get a little nearer to someone who was able to shape feelings into words beside his friend's coffin.

"I keep thinking that I don't know how I'm supposed to live without him. Sappy, but true. I'll wake up in the middle of the night and stare at my pillow, or my wall, and then I'll lie there in the dark and wait for him to be alive again. Like he's just going to come back someday, you know, stroll into the lab, steal one of my donuts, spit out a mouthful of bad coffee, and start making his own. Like he's going to show up on my doorstep with his collection of Monty Python movies and talk all the way through them in the worst British accent you ever heard. Like he's just going to walk here - - right now - - and say, 'Well, Nick, the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,' and then look at Grissom until Grissom tells everyone who said that, and when, and why.

"But that's not going to happen.

"There are days when all I can think about is the last conversation I had with Greg. We had a fight, and we'd never done that before. Arguments, sure, but never anything serious. It was hard to fight with Greg - - you could get annoyed as hell at him but then he'd make you laugh. You couldn't hate him, and he made you not even want to try."

Nick grazed a hand across his face.

"He wouldn't like me crying. He wouldn't have liked all of you wearing black, and he wouldn't have liked all this crying. It's too traditional. I guess having a really proper, black-clothed funeral is how we get back at him for dying. For having the _nerve _to die.

"I mean, what was he thinking? How are we supposed to do this without him?

"But the thing is, we will. We'll do it because we loved him, and he'd hate so much for us to lose our souls over him losing his life. We keep going on because we know that, when we die, Greg's going to twist our wings off in heaven if he thinks that we didn't give life a decent shot after he was gone. We loved him, so we're going to try and live without him, as hard as that sounds. Or that's what I'm going to try and do."

A fleeting grin, shining through tears.

"I think that's how he'd want it."

In a second, with no other conclusion, Nick had become part of the crowd. Grissom wiped his own eyes and found that they were dry, resistant to sentiment. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried at a funeral, not even when his own father was being buried. Not even as a child. He looked at Warrick, and saw dampness on his face, and felt that twist of envy in his stomach again. Was Warrick going to get everything he couldn't have? Confidence, an escape, release? Was everyone winning but him?

Warrick looked like he knew everything Grissom was thinking, and excused him for it.

"Remember your promise, okay? Call me if you move - - call me if you ever need me."

And Warrick walked away before Grissom could say, _I need you now. Stay_.

He briefly considered running after Warrick, who hadn't gone far, but the idea was ridiculous. Even if he caught up with him, he would never say what he wanted to say. Knowing that Warrick would stay if he only asked made the words all that more difficult. Warrick was gone - - lost to a crowd or to New York or just to fate, and Grissom was left in the center, stranded.

He found Nick, instead.

"He would have liked that," he said.

Nick just looked at him. "No, he would have hated it, the same way he would have hated having a funeral, and the same way he would have hated being dead. Being dead probably just makes him mad. And I don't blame him."

"I should have come to see you."

Nick shrugged. "I'm still alive, aren't I? Don't worry about it."

"Warrick's leaving."

"Haven't even put him in the ground yet."

"No, leaving us. Going to New York. After - - after your trial."

"I know when he's leaving," Nick said, sighing. "It was funeral humor. Probably in bad taste, too, but I'm not in the mood for anything better. Yeah, he told me. Can't blame _him_ for that, either, can I? If it wouldn't make me a fugitive, I'd take off, too. Go home."

Grissom wondered when everyone else had started calling a different place their home.

Nick smiled. "He told me that you wouldn't leave. Bet me on it."

"I hope you didn't wager too much, because I'm staying."

"I wouldn't bet him at all. I know you too well." The clouds were starting to streak across the sky, and Nick looked up at them with a frown. "I heard you arrested Braun. Wish I could have seen that one. Catherine says that you almost lost your temper - - but you wouldn't have, would you?"

Grissom fought to say what he should have said days ago, when Nick was still holding his gun, and before Nick had gotten stamped with this elusive look of sorrow-anger.

"I never thanked you."

"For killing Flowers?"

"For stopping me from killing him. Both times." He made himself say it because he wanted Nick to know that, whether Grissom liked it or not, Nick had saved him. "You did what I couldn't do."

"No," Nick said simply, "I just did it first."

He kept losing the people he loved. He thought that Greg was probably the most visible symptom of a greater disease. Nick smiled at him with a kind of sweet, kind weariness, and then was tugged away again by someone who wanted to thank him for a heartfelt eulogy. Grissom could feel the people around him forgiving and being forgiven - - Nick talking to an elderly woman who had been Greg's landlady, Warrick encircled by a few young men and reminiscing about Greg's talents with a pool table, Catherine winning sympathy because of the presence of her daughter and slowly kneeling down to talk with other mothers who were there out of some distant connection Grissom couldn't place. The only person he couldn't see now was Sara, but he knew that he had lost her too - - he had lost her simply because she was the one person he had held on to for so long with such need that when she was finally ripped away, she had torn away part of him with her and left the two of them incapable of fitting back together. Even loving her wasn't going to solve his problems.

He found her surrounded by no one, being comforted by a particularly cool breeze. She had her eyes closed and was beautiful. He couldn't touch her because he was too afraid she would break.

She was quiet, true, but she was alive. He looked at her a long time before speaking, taking in the flush in her cheeks that he thought had been sapped out and turned milky white forever, looking at the curve of her mouth - - the only part of her he'd truly been allowed, even for a short time - - and the way she hadn't lost enough weight to make her black dress look unsuitable. The way she had survived caught in his throat and turned simple observation into prayer.

"I wish you wouldn't," she said, without opening her eyes. "People keep staring at me. I never thought that you'd be doing it, too."

"I can't help it. You're here."

"Here as in at Greg's funeral, or here as in alive?"

Neither. Both. What he had almost meant was that she was there as in still in love with him, and there as in still able to receive love _from _him. It was too complicated to explain, so he stopped the words somewhere between his mind and his mouth, and just shrugged.

"Nick gave a good eulogy, I thought."

"It was good," he said.

They were starting to lower the coffin into the ground, and there were the tears that he had been missing for the whole day. He scrubbed frantically at his eyes, not wanting to embarrass himself in front of her by finally losing control of the situation. Besides, the rubbing created expanding black spots that ate up his vision and vanished the sight of the last bit of Greg being swallowed by earth. She put her hand on his elbow, and, not saying a word, passed him a tissue. It had been folded into a tiny square so tightly that, as he unfolded it, the softest pieces crumbled under his fingers. He wiped his eyes, and crushed the tissue in his hand.

"It's not your fault," she said.

Whether it was his fault or not didn't matter. Fault implied blame implied will, and Grissom had certainly never _willed _this on anyone, although he'd woken up mornings with his face pressed screaming into his pillow, horrorstruck by the thought that it had been his remarks to Nick that had driven Nick to kill, and his blithe dismissal of Greg's suspicions that had made Greg vulnerable. But even that only meant cause, which didn't imply intention.

Sure. It wasn't his fault.

But he was the cause - - he was the reason. What mattered was that he had forgotten what had been trained into him by his parents and the earliest years of his life - - he had forgotten that he wasn't supposed to have the arrogance to love. He hadn't meant to love any of them - - it hadn't been on purpose - - but somehow he had, anyway.

He'd met Catherine, and Catherine had been strong and determined and intense, and he had started loving her accidentally. And loving her had opened up too many doors to loving other people, and then there had been Warrick, who had reminded him of a slightly more outgoing version of himself; Nick, and without love, he would have dismissed Nick's intelligence because of all the wanting and needing Nick seemed to do, but love made it poignant; Sara, and loving Sara had been falling in love with Sara, slippery and dangerous and like nothing he had done before; and Greg, whose odd blend of cockiness and insecurity would have written him off as too complicated in years before and had, instead, made him worthy of study, interest, and love.

What he had forgotten was that too much love softened you and made you easier to hurt, and if he had been cold to them, or apathetic to them, or - - hell, even simply just _pleasant _with them, the way he was with everyone else - - all surface civility and no real emotion - - they would have been safe.

"You don't understand," he said, and touched her cheek.

Her skin was warm. She went on without him - - kept existing in spite of his love, but how much of that had been luck? How much longer could she survive with him loving her?

He looked at Warrick. How would Warrick like winters in New York? Would he freeze to the bone or revel in the snow before it grew slushy and muddy? Would he be happy there, away from everyone who had ever loved him? He looked away from Warrick, because he wanted to stop thinking about exile and the way people tended to be sent out of Eden.

There was Nick, too, Nick who had to stand trial soon, and Nick who couldn't really afford a decent lawyer because he'd spent most of his money trying to make bail just so he could attend a funeral and give a eulogy that, within twenty-four hours, everyone would forget. He should pay Nick's legal fees, and thought that he would. Maybe it was like slapping a Band-Aid to try and fix internal bleeding, but it was the best he could do. He didn't want to stare at Nick, either, not when Nick was a walking embodiment of his own worst and best impulses.

And he didn't want to look at Catherine, who was still holding her daughter's hand because her daughter was all she had left of a family - - biological or not - - that had collapsed under its own weight.

And if he couldn't look at them, he certainly couldn't look at Sara.

But he kept his hand on her cheek and his thumb brushed against the softness of her lips, but it was just like touching Flowers, and he wondered why it wasn't the same for her. He wondered why he was the one flinching away from the touch of his own hand.

"He hurt you because of me," he said, and, wanting her to understand, "I'm the reason all of you were hurt."

Nothing left to say.

He left her and began to walk away alone.


	42. Legend

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Chapter Forty-two: Legend (OTHER)

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He went free before Nick Stokes. All of his frantic dealings and legal training had paid off at the last moment, and Abraham Claberson walked out of the police station without a scratch on him, no matter what Gil Grissom had wanted to do to him. Standing in a crowded room and listening to the conversations around him inevitably turn to Grissom and Flowers, Abraham couldn't help the feeling that he had been forgotten in the rush, somehow overlooked because he had been, after all, only the lawyer. He had not been the one to kill anyone, and he had not been the one to save anyone, and so he was safe to be turned out on the streets, left alone, and already fading from memory.

He went back to his hotel room, cut through the crime scene tape that didn't deserve to be there anyway, laid down on his bed, and slept undisturbed for almost fourteen hours.

When he awoke with a cramp in his neck and stiff, aching legs, he did what he had done every morning since law school - - he got up, showered, and drank some coffee. The steps for waking up and sobering up had always been the same. Then he went down to the continental breakfast, liberated a crueler from a glass plate, drank more coffee, and watched the aftermath on the news.

He connected Nick Stokes to the man he had seen in the interrogation room to the man he had met on the plane, and was a little surprised - - in a very distant way - - when he realized that it had been Stokes who had killed Flowers. Abraham had always thought that the person who would kill Flowers would be someone on a vendetta, someone determined, and certainly someone with more guts than Stokes had seemed to possess on the plane - - not a random, unaffected bystander who just happened to own a gun.

He would have put his money on Grissom killing Flowers. So much for all his psychology. How could he have seen love in Grissom's eyes back in Harvard (and taunted him with it, yes), but missed murder in Stokes's eyes in their every encounter?

When he checked out of the hotel, he bought a black-and-white tabloid that was theorizing that Flowers was still alive (possibly in Brazil) and that the man shot by Nick Stokes had been some kind of decoy or fraud, or, worse and more sensational, an innocent. Abraham read the article three times and decided he kept missing the writer's explanation of what, exactly, an innocent man was doing raping an innocent woman in an apartment full of expensive stolen property.

He sat in his car for a very long time, thinking.

He had gotten out of the whole mess smelling like - - and Flowers could just excuse this pun from his grave - - roses. In the end, it hadn't been the mastermind, the seemingly immortal killer, the decoy, or even the semi-innocent David Hodges that had made it out alive, well, and possibly without even a scratch on his record, depending on whether or not the officer who had threatened to file paperwork had actually done so. Abraham didn't think he would. He had looked like a man with plenty of other concerns, and the threat had had the flat, uninterested tone of a bluff.

He had told Grissom once that he liked to be in control. It felt like he had managed to keep his control of this situation. He had lost things a little in the middle through panic and a lingering bit of love, but he had made the right moves when it had counted. He had been terrified of Flowers, but going to the police had been the right thing to do, because it made him, however late in the game, one of the good guys. He had sold out Sara Sidle, and then sold out Flowers and whoever Flowers was working with - - the news networks had blared a name and photo at him, but Abraham hadn't recognized it - - and it had all been quite profitable, in retrospect.

"Things worked out well enough," he said. "I could get used to it."

He'd been getting tired of the law, anyway. There wasn't enough excitement in playing both sides - - in _manipulation _- - in selling out - - not when everyone else was doing it anyway. Law was getting a bad reputation, and the worst part about the bad reputation was that it wasn't even being caused by him. The field was too large and murky with growing disinterest.

Murder had memory. People were going to remember the White Rose killings long after they had forgotten any of the lawyers at Nick Stokes's trial. It was the crime that made the headlines. The various atrocities Flowers had committed had cast a shadow that would go on and on throughout eternity, longer than anything Abraham could envision or make.

"Flowers was a legend," Abraham said softly, "and legends just keep going on. People remember legends for the rest of their lives."

Whatever else, he wanted most to get out of Las Vegas. The city was bad luck. Underneath all the plastic and shine was something far more real and deadly, to him, to Grissom, to Flowers, to everyone. The city just wasn't kind to its people - - it ate them up alive. And, as much as he hated to admit it, it wouldn't hurt to get as far away from Grissom and Stokes as possible. No reason to stick around in a place where killers already knew his name and hated it. No reason to stick around with people who might be smart enough to see that even a legend like Flowers had to end eventually. No, he needed to go somewhere where the news of Flowers's death had yet to explode throughout public consciousness - - where people were still open and ready for some tragedy to rock them back on their heels. Somewhere where things hadn't fallen apart yet but were just waiting for someone to give them a good push.

There was a whole world outside of Las Vegas. He let names roll off his tongue - - _Paris. London. Boston. Atlanta. New York_. _Chicago. _Big cities that would love his scandal and paint it over paper, scream it over airwaves.

Cities that lived for legends. Cities just waiting for someone to take them in hand.

He tried out the words:

"My name is Matthew Flowers."

He tried to imagine saying those words just as he watched someone's eyes widen in horrified recognition, just as he crushed their skull - - or pulled a knife - - or drew a gun - - or kissed them. He tried to imagine saying them to Elizabeth, if Elizabeth had still been alive, and instead of horrifying him, he reveled in it. All those years he'd spent loving her and never getting a thing out of it . . . but if he had been Flowers, he could have made her love her. God only knew that Flowers had been with Elizabeth more and gone further with her than Abraham ever had.

"My name is Matthew Flowers."

He tried to imagine saying it to Stokes, who might even believe him and wonder if the Flowers he killed hadn't just been a copycat.

"My name is Matthew Flowers."

He giggled and bit down hard on his hand to stifle the noise. Jesus - - couldn't laugh like that in public, a person might think he was crazy. A person might think that he had lost his mind.

When he got out of town, he was going to stop at the nearest flower shop and buy a dozen white roses. No, two dozen. Three. After all, it was going to be a long drive from coast to coast, and he was going to have to have something to do to fill his time.

- - - the end - - -

We're done, can you believe it? I want to thank all of you for sticking with me through thick and thin - - through all the angst and the occasional long absence (sorry!), and most of all, for all your support and readership, when I couldn't have done without it. Now, go read something happy, cheerful, and uplifting - - if you've put up with me this long, you've earned it.


End file.
